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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - III. Population and Migration - 8. Migration - 4. Continued Northward Migration - 5. The Future of Negro Migration
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Chapter 8. Migration 197
But a new form of livelihood arose to take the place of jobs. This was
public assistance in its many forms. It was much harder for Negroes who
needed it to get relief in the South than in the North. In 1935 around
half of all Negro families in the North were on relief.* Hence Negroes
were again attracted northward—^though not to the same extent as during
the period of the World War and the 1920’s. Many Northern states set
up residence requirements—ranging up to five years—to keep out migrants
seeking relief. These requirements were not rigorously enforced in the
early days of the depression, but even when they were, Negroes felt it
better to trust to luck for odd jobs or to their friends until the residence
requirements had been met, rather than to meet almost sure starvation in
the South.^ Relief and the residence requirements for relief also had the
effect of cutting down on the remigration to the South.®
Economic conditions had become relatively worse for Negroes in the
South during the depression. Whites who had lost their small farms or
their better jobs in the cities began to encroach on the Negroes in the heavy
unskilled occupations and even in the service occupations—^the traditional
jobs of the Southern Negro. Southern agriculture became worse, and the
poorest owners and tenants—which included a disproportionate share of
Negroes—were forced out. The Agricultural Adjustment Administration
of the federal government—in an effort to aid Southern agriculture
forced out the poorest among both white and Negro agriculturists even
more.^ Most of these—^including practically all the whites—went on relief,
but many of the Negroes could not get relief and so moved North where
no color distinction was made in the administration of public assistance.®
Most experts believed, during the ’thirties, that the northward Negro
migration had diminished considerably. Now that the preliminary results
of the 1940 Census are available, we know that it has kept up. It was not
so high during the ’thirties as it had been from 1915 to 1930, but the
remarkable thing is that it has kept up at all in the absence of employment
opportunities in the North.^^
5. The Future of Negro Migration
Taking the long historical view, the main observations to be made about
Negro migration are that the Negro people have tended to stay where
“See Chapter 15.
**
See Chapter 1 6.
*Also, persons who are able to support themselves after a fashion but know that they
may be in need of relief sometime in the future, often consider local relief differehtials
when deciding on whether or not they want to migrate. Such potential relief clients arc
particularly numerous, of course, in the Negro group.
^
See Chapter 12.
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