the african american exodus
Initial MovementOne of the most noticeable benefits of emancipation was the freedman’s ability to relocate. The most common relocation efforts were the short distant moves within the rural south as landless farmers (blacks) sought better remunerative arrangements with new landlords (Price-Spartlet, 2009). Many blacks relocated southwest to Arkansas, Texas, and the Oklahoma Territory between the years of 1870-1900, where cotton cultivation was expanding. The economic problems of blacks only translated into migration when there was "promise" of better conditions elsewhere, often meaning a nearby plantation. Blacks in the south were subject to the whims of their landlords as only few were ever able to purchase land. Many who remained in the south scratched a subsistence living from year to year and could offer their children no different future. As this dismal economic situation persisted an environment for outmigration was created (Tolnay, 2003).
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Violence caused by jim crowConsidered secondary by some historical observers, the social causes of the great migration which include: injustices in the courts, lynching, denial of suffrage, discrimination in public
conveyances, and inequalities in educational advantages factored heavily into the decisions of migrating blacks (Loewen, 2005). Stewart E. Tolnay wrote, “Both whites and Negroes in mentioning the reasons for the movement generally give lynching as one of the most important and state that fear of the mob has greatly accelerated the exodus.” This treatment came not only from mobs but also the white judicial system and between 1882 and 1930 over 1,663 blacks were the victim of lynch mobs while 1,299 blacks were legally executed in the Cotton South. Offenses ranged from as low as spitting on a sidewalk to crimes penalized very lightly today like stealing a mule. |