Negro Migration during the WarScott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay)
History
Negro Migration during the War
Scott, Emmett J. (Emmett Jay)
African Americans; Migration, Internal -- United States; World War, 1914-1918 -- Economic aspects -- United States
It seems particularly desirable in any study of the causes of the
movement to get beneath the usual phraseology on the subject and
find, if possible, the basis of the dissatisfaction, and the social,
political and economic forces supporting it. It seems that most of
the causes alleged were present in every section of the South, but
frequently in a different order of importance. The testimony of the
migrants themselves or of the leading white and colored men of the
South was in general agreement. The chief points of disagreement were
as to which causes were fundamental. The frequency with which the same
causes were given by different groups is an evidence of their reality.
A most striking feature of the northern migration was its
individualism. This factor after all, however, was economic. The
motives prompting the thousands of negroes were not always the
same, not even in the case of close neighbors. As a means of making
intelligible these complicating factors it is necessary to watch
the process as it affected the several migrants. The economic motive
stands among the foremost reasons for the decision of the group to
leave the South. There are several ways of arriving at a conclusion
regarding the economic forces. These factors might, for example, be
determined by the amount of unemployment or the extent of poverty in a
community as registered by the prosperity. These facts are important,
but may or may not account wholly for individual action. Except in a
few localities of the South there was no actual misery and starvation.
Nor is it evident that those who left would have perished from want
had they remained. Discontent became more manifest as comparisons were
made between the existing state of things at home and a much better
state of things elsewhere. It is possible to note in the appeals of
the letters a suggestion of a desire simply to improve their living
standards so long as there was an opportunity. In the case of some
there is expressed a praiseworthy providence for their families; and
in others may be found an index to the poverty and hopelessness of
their home communities. In this type of migration the old order is
strangely reversed. Large numbers of negroes have frequently moved
around from State to State and even within the States of the South in
search of more remunerative employment. A movement to the West or even
about in the South could have proceeded from the same cause, as in the
case of the migration to Arkansas and Oklahoma.
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