The Brandon news. (Brandon, Miss.) 1892-1961, 1923-05-17
NEGROES DYING IN
NORTHERN CITIES
BY HUNDREDS
Chill aud Cold Slip Down From
North and Penetrate the Rags and
Rasp the Bodies. White PIauge
CT. 3D. Stays Right and Left.

Mississippi negroes who are being
tempted To move to Detroit and
other Northern cities by the J. <
of higher wages will do well xkNl~ed
the following story fror Oaps( col
mmns of the Detroit New, the lead
ing newspaper of that city:
Up from the golden dust of
dizzy lanes, up from the magnolia
shadowed cabins, up from the sweet
and crumbling corn pone, up from
blue skies and happiness there have
been coming To Detroit in the last
few years thousands of the black
children of the South, children in
heart. in ideals, in faith, in capacity
for joyOuSneSs.
Ragged they arrive, the gumbo
of South Georgia. the clay of Ten
neSSee the sands of Mississippi still
clinging to their brogans. Happy
ana eager. their eyes rolling with
laughter, their lips puckered for the
piping of 'Cannan's Over Yonder'
stepping, strutting shuffling. Their
belongings, more often than not are
wives and pickaninnes, aged fathers
and mothers.
''They are good in their way,
praising the Lord on Sunday, tOting
a load for neighbOr, eager only to
be happy, and if gin they know
and craps they shoot, the finger
we would point may be weighted
down by the illegal cOctabs and the
shoes of the running ponies.
How high falutin' are the prom
ises they made as they swung on
the Jim Crow cars at the little
station of southern states and saw
for the last time the cotton gins
shadow, the lights in the 'con'Ps
house atop the hill, and heard the
liquid music of the whip poor will
broken by the long hee-haw of the
old black jennet. What dreams they
dreamed, exotic. absurd, barbaric,
we may hold, dreams of high hats
and royal king shoes, of diamonds
as big as hawberries, of ice cream
and fried chicken every day, of
'yalla silk dresses and gen wine
gOP Watches
why some even dreamed of
owning a home, and having the
babies and old folks around them to
sit on plus cherS an Mary Linda
fplayin' at de rail, ShO' huff pianner"
We'll, they arrive and the city
takes its toll. The chill and the
cold slip down from the north and
penetrate the rags and rasp the
bodies and the white plague slays
right and left. They drop on the
~ i'm
and are taken to the mOrgue. There
they lie. No one wants them. Su-
perstitiOn is at work. No one will
come TO the mOrgue to identify
them. Their ragged pockets bear
few pennies, a charm for good
luck. He's from Moth Car'lina,' is
the best the cOrOner's deputies can
learn from efforts to identify them.
Somewhere in Dixie they are
waiting news, and it never comes.
The bodies are sent to the pOtter'S
field or the clinic. There are three
in the mOrgue today. Mr.. Palmer
estimates that 75 per cent of the
unidentified dead are negroes, and
the majority of them are new COM
ers from the South.
His letter asks that all negro
ministers ask their congregation to
see that every negro carries with
him card with his name and adj
dress and the address of the near
est relative in the South. If this
is done, he points out, there will
be far fewer wagons backed to the
mOrgue doors waiting to take the
lonely road to the nameless grave"