Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
History
Following the color line : $b An account of Negro citizenship in the American democracy
African Americans; United States -- Race relations
Any person who shall solicit or procure emigrants, or shall attempt
to do so, without first procuring a licence as required by law, shall
be guilty of a misdemeanour.
Ex-Congressman William H. Fleming, one of the ablest statesmen of Georgia,
said:
"Land and other forms of capital cannot spare the Negro and will not give
him up until a substitute is found. His labour is worth millions upon
millions. In Georgia we now make it a crime for anyone to solicit
emigrants without taking out a licence, and then we make the licence as
nearly prohibitive as possible. One of the most dangerous occupations for
any one to follow in this state would be that of an emigrant agent--as
some have found by experience."
In this connection I have an account published in April, 1907, in an
Augusta newspaper of just such a case:
The heaviest fine given in the city court of Richmond County within
the last two years was imposed upon E. F. Arnett yesterday morning.
He was sentenced to pay a fine of one thousand dollars or serve six
months in the county jail.
Arnett was convicted of violating the state emigration laws regarding
the carrying of labour out of the state. He was alleged to have
employed thirteen Negroes to work on the Georgia and Atlantic
Railroad, which operates in this state and Alabama. The jury on the
case returned a verdict of guilty when court convened yesterday,
although it had been reported that a mistrial was probable.
_"Peg Leg" Williams_
A famous railroad emigration agent called "Peg Leg" Williams, who promoted
Negro emigration from Georgia to Mississippi and Texas a few years ago,
was repeatedly prosecuted and finally driven out of business. In a letter
which he wrote some time ago to the Atlanta _Constitution_ he said:
I know of several counties not a hundred miles from Atlanta where
it's more than a man's life is worth to go in to get Negroes to move
to some other state. There are farmers that would not hesitate to
shoot their brother were he to come from Mississippi to get "his
niggers," as he calls them, even though he had no contract with them.
I know personally numbers of Negro men who have moved West and after
accumulating a little, return to get a brother, sister, or an old
father or mother, and they were compelled to return without them,
their lives being imperilled; they had to leave and leave quick.
In view of such a feeling it may be imagined how futile is the talk of the
deportation of the Negro race. What the Southern planter wants to-day is
not fewer Negroes but more Negroes--Negroes who will "keep their place."
_Laws to Make the Negro Work_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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