(Not So?) Great Migration

I just read an interesting book on the Great Migration of blacks to the North in the 1910s and 20s, called Farewell, We’re Good and Gone. Rather than the excited optimism of the Harlem community and journals like Opportunity, the author (Carole Marks) takes a much darker, long-term view of the mass exodus from the South. She analyzes blacks in comparison to European immigrants, viewing the move Northward as similar in struggles and dynamics as the journey across the Pacific. Much like European migrants, blacks arriving in the North were completely vulnerable, with little money and no property. Therefore, they eagerly accepted the worst jobs in order to pay the rent and establish their families in the new area. Many migrants even signed work contracts before leaving the South, agreeing to pay scales they did not realize were greatly below the average in the industrial North. This bottom-tier position is part and parcel of the migrant experience, but Carole Marks argues that blacks never truly escaped that state of vulnerability.

First of all, what caused the large-scale migration? WWI took many white Northerners overseas, but more interestingly, mid-decade legislation blocked immigration TO the US from countries at war, so the flow of cheap labor from Eastern and Western Europe was cut. Many newly-arrived immigrants also returned to their home countries to fight. So Northern industries needed replacement labor.

The boll weevil infestation decimated the cotton-dependent farms across the South, creating conditions of horrible poverty. The bug first came to Texas in 1892 and slowly spread eastward for the next thirty years until 1922. Rural blacks not making ends meet by farming moved into the cities, crowding out the already established urban black population.

           

In 1912 Woodrow Wilson was elected, and a federal government which previously had been somewhat of a check to racist Southern state authority, now gave their support to Jim Crow policies. To give you a sense of the inequality, the per capita education expenditures in 1916 for whites was $10.32; for blacks each student received $2.89 in attention. These disparities were across the board.

Agents for Northern companies and even from the federal government came South around 1915 to recruit workers, even paying their travel fares or loaning them the money and later taking it out of their first paychecks. This got some of the excitement started. However, word of mouth within families and communities was a much more powerful force in the push northward. By 1916 or 1917, blacks did not need promises of travel loans to head North – they used their savings and sold property in order to make the journey as soon as possible.

The author stresses that is wasn’t all rural, uneducated blacks who made their way North. The transformation didn’t go straight from the cotton field to Harlem. Before going North, rural blacks would often move to a close by Southern city and try their luck there. Therefore the blacks who were already living in the cities were often the ones pushed out and feeling the need to migrate. Many of these people were already industry-trained and some were educated. Studies have shown that the literacy rate of black migrants at this time was significantly higher than rates for the many different waves of European migration at the turn of the century.

You would think blacks would have an advantage because they speak fluent English, many were trained, many were literate; they were already citizens. But racism changed the game. While many European immigrant groups were originally ostracized because they threatened white jobs or crowded cities, blacks were hated for their blackness long after uneasiness over their migrant status dissolved. And their previous training in Southern industry rarely helped better their position in the North. The mechanizing of production caused homogenization in jobs while downgrading specialization. Often, skilled blacks had no chance to use their knowledge, instead working in bottom-feeder jobs with no promotional opportunities.    

White workers often got into conflicts with blacks over strikes and union actions. Blacks were excluded from all unions in the 1920s. Also, they were desperate for work so they were often employed as strikebreakers. Many strikes were unsuccessful because of the endless supply of black labor willing to take over the positions. Furthermore, in many businesses employers strategically employed a mix of white workers, blacks and newly arrived Europeans. The theory was that the three groups would never be able to unite and act collectively against company policies. It often proved successful.

The North received all the benefits of migration while the South lost out. Southern governments and economies paid the cost to educate and train blacks, only to have them travel North and use their skills in Northern industry. The author described the exploitative relationship as a penetration of the rural periphery by the urban core, and the penetration of the raw material-based Southern economy by the efficient Northern one.

 How does all this talk about migration relate to poetry? The vibrant Harlem community was created by an influx of blacks in the late teens and early 20s, encouraged by a dirt-cheap housing market in the area and several key developers who saw opportunity in renting out entire buildings to black populations who would fill vacancies immediately. Survey Graphic’s “New Negro” 1925 issue gloriously proclaims Harlem as a race capital and one article details the traits of the real estate market which made it so attractive to blacks. Carole Marks’ book does not echo this celebratory tone. She does not see the slow establishment of blacks in Northern life. Comparing the percentage of blacks under the poverty line and the percentage in the middle class in 1920 and 1960, she sees little change, few signs of improvement.

It’s good to check my enthusiasm a little bit, since all I’ve been reading have been passionate poems about a black renaissance, with no horizons as to what the race can do..blah blah blah.

You can see where racism and censorship effected poetry publication here: After a riot between blacks and whites on a military base in Texas in which many whites died, scores of blacks were sentenced to death while not one white soldier was charged. Archibald Grimke wrote a poem denouncing the convictions, but WEB Du Bois refused to print it, because he had been “specially warned by the Dept. of Justice that some of our articles are considred disloyal,” adding “I would not dare to print this just now” (96). Who knows in what other ways poetry was censored and molded to meet government and cultural trends and fears.

Look at all the soldiers on trial on the left. This is a crazy picture.