We are astonished, too, to learn that one of the reasons for this unrest among the negroes who were born and reared here is fear that all negroes are to be run out of Georgia. This idea, of course, has been planted in the minds of the simple minded of the race by the crafty and unscrupulous labor agents who have operated in almost every section of the State.
The negroes have this idea from the fact that there are localities in the State right now where a negro can not live. And we do not know of anybody that is doing anything to change this condition.
Labor agents are doing their best to put the fear into the hearts of the negroes in this State that they are going to be run out by the white people, some of them even fixing the time as next June; but this work began long before the negro exodus north was thought of. The example of one county in north Georgia, which ran every negro out, was followed by other counties adjoining, and the general public has little idea how widespread the contagion became—for lawlessness is nearly always contagious.
If Georgia is injured, agriculturally and industrially, by the negro exodus, the white people here have no one to blame but themselves. They have allowed negroes to be lynched, five at a time, on nothing stronger than suspicion; they have allowed whole sections to be depopulated of them; they have allowed them to be whitecapped and whipped, and their homes burned, with only the weakest and most spasmodic efforts to apprehend or punish those guilty—when any efforts were made at all.
Has not the negro been given the strongest proof that he has no assured right to live, to own property nor to expect justice in Georgia?
When the negro is gone, his loss will be felt in every large agricultural section and every industrial community of the South. For the average white man can not do the heavier work at the sawmills, naval stores plants and in many lines of manufacture, that is now being done by the negro. As a consequence, these plants and many large plantations must stand idle or import a class of white labor that will be a great deal worse than the black. Confronted with cheap white labor, and white men of a race of which they have no understanding—then will the South have its labor problems.
But at present, it seems, little can be done. Unless southern white people who have their all invested in agriculture or manufacturing take care of their own interest by seeing that the negro gets justice when suspected and a fair trial when accused, and assured that so long as he behaves he will be guaranteed safety of life and property, it is perhaps as well to let the negro go. It will mean an industrial revolution for the South, but the present condition of affairs has become intolerable.[179]
The negroes of the South used both the white and negro newspapers of that section in carrying on the discussion of the migration movement. The substance of what the negroes said through the press was that, first of all, the negroes wanted to stay in the South and were going north not only because there they could secure better wages than were generally paid in the South, but also because they would, in the North, get protection and have privileges not accorded in the South. Concerning the negro wanting to stay in the South, it was pointed out that in the South he did have economic opportunity and received encouragement. "The truth is that the negroes who are leaving the South in large numbers, and others who are thinking of going, do not want to go. They prefer to remain here."[180]
It was pointed out that the passing of stringent labor laws would not stop the exodus. The negro could not be kept in the South by force.
Various communities [said a negro] are passing stringent laws with the view of making the business of agents either impracticable or impossible. This will ultimately have the very opposite effect of what was intended. I am a negro and know the deeper thoughts and feelings of my own people. I know their yearnings and the religious zeal with which they look forward to the future for better days, and to other climes than this for better conditions.
Now to pass severe laws to block this movement will not only be a waste of time, but the most unwise way of dealing with the problem. The problem can not be solved from the angle of force.
In order for the negro to be kept in the South he must be made to see, to feel, that on the whole it will be better for him to remain in the South than to migrate to the North. Stop lynching. Teach us to love the South and be contented here by ceasing to abridge us in such extremes in common rights and citizenship.
Another method of helping to keep the negro in the South is for the better class of whites to get hold of the negroes. In a word, there should be cooperation between the races. The negroes should be given better schools and the whites should set before the negroes better examples of law and order. The North is offering better homes, better schools and justice before the law. The South can do the same.
"One of our grievances," said a negro correspondent of the Chattanooga Times,[181] "is that in colored localities we have very bad streets, no lights, no sewerage system, and sanitary conditions are necessarily bad. Give the negro the right kind of a show, living wages, consider him as a man, and he will be contented to remain here."
A good presentation of the negroes' side of the case is given in the following letter from a negro minister to the Montgomery Advertiser.[182] He wrote:
Why should the South raise such objections to the jobless man seeking the manless job, especially when it has held that jobless man up to the ridicule of the world as trifling, shiftless and such a burden to the South? Now the opportunity has come to the negro to relieve the South of some of its burden, and at the same time advance his own interests, a great hue and cry is started that it must not be allowed, and the usual and foolish method of repressive legislation is brought into play.
Addressing the editor of the Advertiser, another negro correspondent said: