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CHAPTER 13
SEEKING JOBS OUTSIDE AGRICULTURE
t
I. Perspective on the Urbanization of the Negro People
Only a part of the present farm population in the South has any future
on the land. This is particularly true of the Negro farm population, as has
been amply demonstrated in the preceding chapter. It is necessary to remind
the reader of this important fact. For outside a limited group of experts,
few white people realize that, already, almost two-thirds of the Negroes
live in nonfarm areas, and that eventually all Negroes, except for a small
minority, will have to become integrated into the nonagricultural economy
of America. Even the experts, including Negro college teachers in agricul-
ture, seem to have an exaggerated belief in the Negro’s possibilities in
Southern agriculture. More generally, there is a widespread attitude in
the cities that the Negro ought to stay where he belongs—on the Southern
farm land. The nonfarm parts of the country simply do not want to accept
the responsibility for Negroes who previously have made their living in
agriculture. This protectionist attitude is not typical of Americans only.
Nor is it confined to the Negro problem alone. In America, as well as in
many other countries, there are strong tendencies to build walls around
one’s own community in order to keep out all sorts of low income people
who would press down wage levels, add to the housing shortage and pos-
sibly become liabilities in public relief. The recent tendency to make
residence requirements for relief more severe is only one of the devices
used in this policy of social protectionism.
There is no doubt, however, that this attitude is especially pronounced in
regard to rural Negroes from the South. Because of the decadence of agri-
culture and the constitutional impossibility of raising barriers against inter-
nal migration, this attitude will not be able to stop the gradual urbanization
of the Negro people. As we saw in Chapter 8, this has been going on all the
time, and since the First World War the Negro farm population has
actually been declining because of migration. But the popular attitude that
the Negroes had better stay where they are has given, and will probably
continue to give, a basis for segregation and discrimination both in housing
and in employment. It even tends to perpetuate the ignorance about Negroes
by making everyone want to look the other way. The belief that the agri-
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