Chicago Race Riots/Chapter 7
VII
AFTER EACH LYNCHING
Chicago is a receiving station that connects directly with every town or city where the people conduct a lynching.
"Every time a lynching takes place in a community down south you can depend on it that colored people from that community will arrive in Chicago inside of two weeks," says Secretary Arnold Hill of the Chicago Urban league, 3032 South Wabash avenue. "We have seen it happen so often that now whenever we read newspaper dispatches of a public hanging or burning in Texas or a Mississippi town, we get ready to extend greetings to people from the immediate vicinity of the scene of the lynching. If it is Arkansas or Georgia, where a series of lynchings is going on this week, then you may reckon with certainty that there will be large representations from those states among the colored folks getting off the trains at the Illinois Central station two or three weeks from to-day."
Better jobs, the right to vote and have the vote counted at elections, no Jim Crow cars, less race discrimination and a more tolerant attitude on the part of the whites, equal rights with white people in education—these are among the attractions that keep up the steady movement of colored people from southern districts to the north.
"Opportunity, not alms," is the slogan of the educated, while the same thought comes over and over again from the illiterate in their letters, saying, "All we want is a chanst," or, as one spells it, "Let me have a chanch, please."
Hundreds of letters written to The Chicago Defender, the newspaper, and to the Urban league reflect the causes of the migration. Charles Johnston, an investigator for the Carnegie foundation, a lieutenant from overseas with the 803d infantry, believes the economic motive is foremost. He says:
"There are several ways of arriving at a conclusion regarding the economic forces behind the movement of the colored race northward. The factors might be determined by the amount of unemployment or the extent of poverty. These facts are important, but may or may not account for individual action.
"Except in a few localities of the south there was no actual misery or starvation. Nor is it evident that those who left would have perished from want had they remained. 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. The migrations to Arkansas and Oklahoma were expressions of the economic force.
"A striking feature of the northern migration was its individualism. Motives prompting the thousands of negroes were not always the same, not even in the case of close neighbors. The economic motive was foremost, a desire simply to improve their living standards when opportunity beckoned. A movement to the west or even about the south could have proceeded from the same cause.
"Some of the letters reveal a praiseworthy solicitude for their families on the part of the writers. Other letters are an index to poverty and helplessness of home communities.
"In this type of migration the old order is strangely reversed. Instead of leaving an overdeveloped and overcrowded country for undeveloped new territory, they have left the south, backward as it is in development of its resources, for the highly industrialized north. Out of letters from the south we listed seventy-nine different occupations among i,ooo persons asking for information and aid. Property holders, impecunious adventurers, tradesmen, entire labor unions, business and professional men, families, boys and girls, all registered their protests, mildly but determinately, against their homes and sought to move.'*
From Pensacola, Fla., in May, 1917, came a letter saying, "Would you please let me know what is the price of boarding and rooming in Chicago and where is the best place to get a job before the draft will work? I would rather join the army 1,000 times up there than to join it once down here."
"What I want to say is I am coming north," wrote another, "and thought I would write you and list a few of the things I can do and see if you can find a place for my anywhere north of the Mason and Dixon line, and I will present myself in person at your office as soon as I hear from you. I am now employed in the R. R. shops at Memphis. I am an engine watchman, hostler, rod cup man, pipe fitter, oil house man, shipping clerk, telephone lineman, freight caller, an expert soaking vat man who can make dope for packing hot boxes on engines. I am capable of giving satisfaction in either of the abovenamed positions."
"I wish very much to come north," wrote a New Orleans man. "Anywhere in Illinois will do if I am away from the lynchmen's noose and the torchmen's fire. We are firemen, machinist helpers, practical painters and general laborers. And most of all, ministers of the gospel who are not afraid of labor, for it put us where we are."
"I want to ask you for information as to what steps I should take to secure a good position as a first class automobeal blacksmith or any kind pertaining to such," is an inquiry from a large Georgia city. "I have been operating a first class white shop here for quite a number of years, and if I must say, the only colored man in the city that does. Any charges, why notify me, but do not publish my name."
"Please don't publish this in any paper," and "I would not like for my name to be published in the paper," are requests that accompanied two letters from communities where lynchings had occurred.
A girl wrote from Natchez:
"I am writing you to oblige me to put my application in the papers for me, please. I am a body servant or a nice house maid. My hair is black and my eyes are black and I have smooth skin, clear and brown. Good teeth and strong and good health. My weight is 136 lbs."
Here is a sample of the kind of letter that is handed around and talked about down south. It was written by a colored workman in East Chicago, June, 19 17, to his former pastor at Union Springs, Ala.:
"It is true the colored men are making good. Pay is never less than $3 per day for ten hours—this not promise. I do not see how they pay such wages the way they work laborers. They do not hurry or drive you. Remember this ($3) is the very lowest wage. Piece work men can make from $6 to $8 a day. They receive their pay every two weeks. I am impressed. My family also. They are doing nicely. I have no right to complain whatever."
"I often think so much of the conversation we used to have concerning this part of the world. I wish many times you could see our people up here, as they are entirely in a different light. I witnessed Decoration day on May 30, the line of march was four miles, eight brass bands. All business houses were closed. I tell you the people here are patriotic. The chief of police dropped dead Friday. Buried him to-day, the procession about three miles long. People are coming here every day and find employment. Nothing here but money, and it is not hard to get. Oh, I have children in school every day with the white children."
Enterprise must be the first name of another who wrote back to Georgia:
"You can hardly get a place to live in here. I am wide awake on my financial plans. I have rented me a place for boarders. I have fifteen sleepers, I began one week ago. I am going into some kind of business here soon.
"The colored people are making good. They are the best workers. I have made a great many white friends. The church is crowded with Baptists from Alabama and Georgia. Ten and twelve join every Sunday. He is planning to build a fine brick church. He takes up 50 and 60 dollars each Sunday."
It must be noted that all the foregoing letters were written with no intent of publication and with no view at all of explaining race migration or factors in housing, employment and education.