One peculiar phase of the white southern prejudice is that no matter how well liked or popular a colored man be in any community, his son does not share that popularity unless he enters a field of endeavor distinctly lower in the scale than that occupied by his parent. My experience goes both ways on this subject. My stepfather was a dearly beloved colored man of the old school, but when he sent me off to Oberlin College I returned to find that the community in which I had been beloved as a boy in attendance at the rude country school looked at me askance. It took twenty years to overcome the handicap of attempting to occupy a higher sphere than that to which the community thought it right to assign me. My experiences were repeated by my son. He was a well liked boy by the best people in a city of about twenty-five thousand, because he was my son and was polite and agreeable. When he went to a nearby Mississippi college and worked in his summer vacations in a local industrial plant, they still thought well of him, but when it was learned that he was being graduated at Oberlin College, and his picture appeared in a college year book, among others, my intimate white friends wanted to know the necessity for so much education and, with a shrug of the shoulder, they let all mention of him drop, as if he had offended the most sacred laws of the community. This spirit appeared so marked that I did not have him come back to visit his mother and me during the summer vacation. I have seen the same spirit in many instances. No man can explain why it is, but it is so.[31] [Footnote 17: _New York Times_, September 5, 9, 28, 1916.] [Footnote 18: Ibid., October 18, 28; November 5, 7, 12, 15; December 4, 9, 1916.] [Footnote 19: Work, _Report on Negro Migration from Alabama_.] [Footnote 20: Work and Johnson, _Report on the Migration during the World War_.] [Footnote 21: Attractive advertisements appeared in negro newspapers with wide circulation in the South. These are from the _Chicago Defender_. "Wanted--10 molders. Must be experienced. $4.50 to $5.50 per day. Write B.F.R. _Defender_ Office." "Wanted--25 girls for dishwashing. Salary $7 a week and board. John R. Thompson, Restaurant, 314 South State Street. Call between 7 and 8 a.m. Ask for Mr. Brown." "Wanted--25 young men as bus boys and porters. Salary $8 per week and board. John R. Thompson, Restaurant, 314 South State Street. Call between 7 and 8 a.m. Ask for Mr. Brown." "Molders wanted. Good pay, good working conditions. Firms supply cottages for married men. Apply T.L. Jefferson, 3439 State Street. "Ten families and 50 men wanted at once for permanent work in the Connecticut tobacco fields. Good wages. Inquire National League on Urban Conditions among Negroes, 2303 Seventh Avenue, New York City, New York."