to intimidate the citizens from going North, even Dr. Redmond's speech was circulated around, this has not deterred our people from leaving. Many have walked miles to take the train for the North. There is a determination to leave and there is no hand save death to keep them from it.
THOMAS LIKES THE NORTH
J. H. Thomas, Birmingham, Ala., Brownsville Colony, has been here several weeks and is very much pleased with the North. He is working at the Pullman shops, making twice as much as he did at home. Mr. Thomas says the "exodus" will be greater later on in the year, that he did not find four feet of snow or would freeze to death. He lives at 346 East Thirty-fifth St.
LEAVING FOR THE EAST
Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 19.—Fifteen families, all members of the Race, left here today for Pittsburgh, Pa., where they will take positions as butlers, and maids, getting sixty to seventy-five dollars per month, against fifteen and twenty paid here. Most of them claim that they have letters from their friends who went early and made good, saying that there was plenty of work, and this field of labor is short, owing to the vast amount of men having gone to Europe and not returned.
THEY'RE LEAVING MEMPHIS IN DROVES
Some are coming on the passenger,
Some are coming on the freight,
Others will be found walking,
For none have time to wait.
Other headlines read: "Thousands Leave Memphis"; "Still Planning to Come North"; "Northbound Their Cry." These articles are especially interesting for the impelling power of the suggestion of a great mass movement.
Denunciation of the South.—The idea that the South is a bad place, unfit for the habitation of Negroes, was "played up" and emphasized by the Defender. Conditions most distasteful to Negroes were given first prominence. In this it had a clear field, for the local southern Negro papers dared not make such unrestrained utterances. Articles of this type appeared:
EXODUS TO START
Forest City, Ark., Feb. 16.—David B. Smith (white) is on trial for life for the brutal murder of a member of the Race, W. H. Winford, who refused to be whipped like others. This white man had the habit of making his "slave" submit to this sort of punishment and when Winford refused to stand for it, he was whipped to death with a "black snake" whip. The trial of Smith is attracting very little attention. As a matter of fact, the white people here think nothing of it as the dead man is a "nigger."
This very act, coupled with other recent outrages that have been heaped upon our people, are causing thousands to leave, not waiting for the great spring movement in May.
The Defender had a favorite columnist, W. Allison Sweeney. His specialty was "breaking southerners and 'white folks' niggers on the wheel." One of his articles in the issue of June 23, 1917, was captioned: "A Chicago 'Nigger' Preacher, a 'Feeder,' of The 'Little Hells,' Springs up to Hinder Our Brethren Coming North."
A passage from this article will illustrate the temper of his writings. Aroused by what he calls a "white folks nigger," he remarks:
Such a creature has recently been called to my attention, and for the same reason that an unchecked rat has been known to jeopardize the life of a great ship, a mouse's nibble of a match to set a mansion aflame, I've concluded to carve a
"Slice of liver or two"
from that bellowing ass, who, at this very moment no doubt, somewhere in the South, is going up and down the land, telling the natives why they should be content, as the Tribune, puts it, to become "Russianized," to remain in that land—to them—of blight; of murdered kin, deflowered womanhood, wrecked homes, strangled ambitions, make-believe schools, roving "gun parties," midnight arrests, rifled virginity, trumped up charges, lonely graves, where owls hoot, and where friends dare not go! Do you wonder at the thousands leaving the land where every foot of ground marks a tragedy, leaving the grave of their fathers and all that is dear, to seek their fortunes in the North? And you who say that their going is to seek better wages are insulting truth, dethroning reason, and consoling yourself with a groundless allegation.
Retaliation.—In answer to the warnings of the South against the rigors of the northern winters, articles of this nature appeared:
FREEZING TO DEATH IN THE SOUTH
So much has been said through the white papers in the South about the members of the race freezing to death in the North. They freeze to death down South when they don't take care of themselves. There is no reason for any human staying in the Southland on this bugaboo handed out by the white press, when the following clippings are taken from the same journals:
AGED NEGRO FROZEN TO DEATH
Albany, Ga., Feb. 8.—Yesterday the dead body of Peter Crowder, an old Negro, was found in an out-of-the-way spot where he had been frozen to death during the recent cold snap [from the Macon (Georgia) Telegraph].
DIES FROM EXPOSURE
Spartanburg, Feb. 6.—Marshall Jackson, a Negro man, who lived on the farm of J. T. Harris near Campobello Sunday night froze to death [from the South Carolina State].
NEGRO FROZEN TO DEATH IN FIRELESS GRETNA HUT
Coldest weather of the last four years claimed a victim Friday night, when Archie Williams, a Negro, was frozen to death in his bed in a little hut in the outskirts of Gretna [from the New Orleans Item, dated Feb. 4th].
NEGRO WOMAN FROZEN TO DEATH MONDAY
Harriet Tolbert, an aged Negro woman, was frozen to death in her home at 18 Garibaldi Street early Monday morning during the severe cold [Atlanta (Ga.) Constitution, dated Feb. 6].
If you can freeze to death in the North and be free, why freeze to death in the South and be a slave, where your mother, sister, and daughter are raped and burned at stake, where your father, brother and son are treated with contempt and hung to a pole, riddled with bullets at the least mention that he does not like the way he has been treated?
Come North then, all of you folks, both good and bad. If you don't behave yourself up here, the jails will certainly make you wish you had. For the hard working man there is plenty of work—if you really want it. The Defender says come.
Still in another mood:
DIED, BUT TOOK ONE WITH HIM
Alexandria, La., Sept. 29.—Joe Pace (white) a southern workman, who had a way of bulldozing members of the Race employed by the Elizabeth Lumber Company, met his match here last Saturday night.
Pace got into one of his moods and kicked a fellow named Israel. Israel determined to get justice some way and knowing that the courts were only for white men in this part of the country, he took a shot at Pace and his aim was good.
Another type of article appeared. In keeping with the concept of the South as a bad place for Negroes, their escape from it under exceptional circumstances was given unique attention. Thus, there were reported the following kind of cases.
Saved from the South
Lawyers Save Another from Being Taken South
