Negro Migration during the War

by Emmett J. Scott

In Mississippi, largely a farming section, wages did not increase to the extent that they did in Alabama, but some increase was necessary to induce the negroes to remain on the plantations and towns to keep the industries going. In Greenville wages increased at first about ten per cent but this did not suffice to stop the migration, for, because of the scarcity of labor, factories and stores had to employ white porters, druggists had to deliver their own packages and firms had to resort to employing negro women. On the farms much of the crop was lost on account of the scarcity of labor. In Greenwood wages of common laborers increased from $1 and $1.25 to $1.75 per day. Clarksdale was also compelled to offer laborers more remuneration. Vicksburg found it necessary to increase the wages of negroes from $1.25 to $2 per day. There were laborers on steamboats who received $75 to $100 per month.

At Leland 500 to 1,000 men received $1.75 per day. The oil mills of Indianola raised the wages of the negroes from $1.50 to $2 per day. At Laurel the average daily wage was raised from $1.35 to $1.65, the maximum wage being $2. Wages increased at Meridian from 90 cents and $1.25 to $1.50 and $1.75 per day. The wholesale houses increased the compensation of their employes from $10 to $12 per week. From $1.10 in Hattiesburg the daily wage was raised to $1.75 and $2 per day. Wages in Jackson increased from $1 and $1.25 to $1.35 and $1.50 per day. In Natchez there was an increase of 25 per cent. On the whole, throughout the State there was an increase of from 10 to 30 per cent and in some instances of as much as 100 per cent.[⁹⁷]

Throughout the South there was not only a change in policy as to the method of stopping the migration of the blacks to the North, but a change in the economic policy of the South. Southern business men and planters soon found out that it was impossible to treat the negro as a serf and began to deal with him as an actual employe entitled to his share of the returns from his labor. It was evident that it would be very much better to have the negroes as coworkers in a common cause than to have them abandon their occupations in the South, leaving their employers no opportunity to secure to themselves adequate income to keep them above want.

A more difficult change of attitude was that of the labor unions. They had for years been antagonistic to the negroes and had begun to drive them from many of the higher pursuits of labor which they had even from the days of slavery monopolized. The skilled negro laborer has gradually seen his chances grow less and less as the labor organizations have invaded the South. In the end, however, the trade unions have been compelled to yield, although complete economic freedom of the negro in the South is still a matter of prospect.

There was, too, a decided change in the attitude of the whole race toward the blacks. The white people could be more easily reached, and very soon there was brought about a better understanding between the races. Cities gave attention to the improvement of the sanitary condition of the negro sections, which had so long been neglected; negroes were invited to take part in the clean-up week; the Women's Health League called special meetings of colored women, conferred with them and urged them to organize community clubs. Committees of leading negroes dared to take up with their employers the questions of better accommodations and better treatment of negro labor. Members of these committees went before chambers of commerce to set forth their claims. Others dared boldly to explain to them that the negroes were leaving the South because they had not been given the treatment which should be accorded men.

Instead of expressing their indignation at such efforts on the part of the negroes, the whites listened to them attentively. Accordingly, joint meetings of the whites and blacks were held to hear frank statements of the case from speakers of both races. One of the most interesting of these meetings was the one held in Birmingham, Alabama. The negroes addressing the audience frankly declared that it was impossible to bring back from the North the migrants who were making good there, but that the immediate problem requiring solution was how to hold in the South those who had not gone. These negroes made it clear that it was impossible for negro leaders through the pulpit and press to check the movement, but that only through a change in the attitude of the whites to the blacks could the latter be made to feel that the Southland is safe for them.

Here we see the coming to pass of a thing long desired by those interested in the welfare of the South and long rejected by those who have always prized the peculiar interest of one race more highly than the welfare of all. White men, for the first time, were talking on the streets with negroes just as white men talk with each other. The merchants gave their negro patrons more attention and consideration. A prominent white man said, "I have never seen such changes as have come about within the last four months. I know of white men and negroes who have not dared to speak to one another on the streets to converse freely." The suspension of harsh treatment was so marked in some places that few negroes neglected to mention it. In Greenwood and Jackson, Mississippi, the police were instructed to curtail their practices of beating negroes. Several court cases in which negroes were involved terminated favorably for them. There followed directly after the exodus an attempt at more even handed justice, or at least some conciliatory measures were adopted. The authorities at Laurel, Mississippi, were cautioned to treat negroes better, so as to prevent their leaving. There is cited the case of a negro arrested on an ambiguous charge. He was assigned to the county chain gang and put to work on the roads. At this time the treatment in the courts was being urged by negroes as a reason for leaving. This negro's case was discussed. He was sent back from the county roads alone for a shovel. He did not return; and his return was not expected.[⁹⁸]

Conferences of negroes and whites in Mississippi emphasized the necessity of cooperation between the races for their common good. The whites said, to quote a negro laborer, "We must just get together." A negro said: "The dominant race is just a bit less dominant at present." "We are getting more consideration and appreciation," said another. From another quarter came the remark that "instead of the old proverbial accusation—shiftless and unreliable—negro labor is being heralded as 'the only dependable labor extant, etc.'"[⁹⁹] A general review of the results made it clear that there was a disposition on the part of the white population to give some measure of those benefits, the denial of which was alleged as the cause of the exodus. For those who remained conditions were much more tolerable, although there appeared to persist a feeling of apprehension that these concessions would be retracted as soon as normal times returned. Some were of the opinion that the exodus was of more assistance to those negroes who stayed behind than to those who went away.

As a matter of fact, the white people in the South began to direct attention to serious work of reconstruction to make that section inviting to the negro. Bolivar county, Mississippi, as a direct result of the recommendation of the labor committee, made an appropriation of $25,000 toward an agricultural high school, the first of its kind in the State. The school boards of Coahoma and Adams counties have appointed Jeanes Foundation Supervisors and, in Coahoma county, promised a farm demonstration agent. They also made repairs on the school buildings in towns, and prominent whites have expressed a willingness to duplicate every dollar negroes raise for rural school improvements. A large planter in the Big Creek neighborhood has raised, together with his tenants, $1,000 for schools and the superintendent of schools has gone over the county urging planters to give land for negro schools. Two other large planters, whose tenants number into the hundreds, have made repairs on the schoolhouses on their plantations. The Mississippi Council of Defense passed a resolution calling upon the State to put a farm demonstrator and home economics agent to work in rural communities to make living conditions better in the effort to induce the people to stay.