The Michigan chronicle. [volume] (Detroit, Mich.) 1936-current, 1944-08-19
GOING SOUTH?

industrial centers at this time concerns the future
of the workers who have come up from the South
land to work in war industries. They all want to
know, Are the Negroes going back South? Most
Negro leaders have truthfully answered, NO. After
the last war the workers who had come North stayed
and there is every indication that those who have
come to help in the current war effort will remain
after the shooting is all over.
Although the South is changing and many Of its
most violent social patterns being disrupted the
Southern way of life is still remote from anything
that we can call democratic Industrial workers have
greater opportunities in the North and there are
greater educational and economic opportunities for
their children The educational advantages of the
North alone have brought many Southern families
here over long period AS result of the inmigra-
tions during the last few decades the Negro COM
munites of large urban centers have doubled and
in some areas the population increase has been a
hundred fold.
1t must not be forgotten that the overwhelming ma
FORTY of the Southern Negroes who have come North
in the last few decades were deliberately recruited
by manufacturers who sought an abundance OF man.
power Once the peak need Of manpower passes,
the big boys begin to lament the presence of these
workers We have discovered that new technique
is being used this time by city fathers to rid their
communities Of the Surplus Negro population
The new technique is relatively simple The city
fathers refuse to provide adequate housing accom-
modatons and oppose the efforts of the Federal gov
eminent to house the Negro workers. They oppose
liberal unemployment compensation benefits and
stick residence clauses in legislation which might
ease the economic plight of Negro workers who may
lose their war jobs in the reconverson period The
police systems operate the principle that if life is
made undesirable for Negro workers. the immigrants
will be glad to 90 back South despite its ynchtradi-
tion In short every method to discourage the per-
manent settlement of Negroes is used to some degree
Despite this Encouragement, the immigrant Ne
groes still intend to stay and not without good reason
When the Southern workers come North and discover
that the antiNegro practices from which they fled
are also operating above the Mason and Dixie, they
begin to realize that all America in need of reform
on this race issue and that the South has monopoly
on violent prejudices In the North, however, there
is liberal tradition which does manifest itself In
many ways, in the absence of Jim-Crowsm here and
there and in the greater fairness of the courts Edu-
cation is easier to obtain and the political activity OF
Negroes is more advanced and fruitful
More important than these however is the fact that
there are many whites in the North with whom the
Negro can ally himself in the struggle to help build
true democracy for all the people. The strong pro-
gressive and liberal movements of the North, par
tcuary the labor movements bulWarks OF
strength for democracy and they offer the Negro
workers an opportunity to join the struggle against
the reactonary elements which have always op-
pressed poor whites and Negroes and kept them di-
vided. The liberal mass movements which include
all ethnic groups and dedicated to the building
of real democracy with equality of opportunity for
all people represent the best hope of this country
These movements are beginning to penetrate the
feuda South and the changes which taking place
can be credited to their efforts.
The old doctrine Of Negro natonalism which in its
extreme aspects became the Of white SUI
premacy has lost its appeal among the Negro masses
and it is being replaced by philosophy of black
and white unity and common struggle for the COM
mon welfare. This new philosophy is the bedrock
principle of our great industrial unions and it has
given hope to many Negroes who once believed
that eventual violence the only way out of the
American dilemma
There is grave danger, however, that the anti
Negro attitudes Of our city-fathers in the North,
who are seeking to drive Negroes out of their
found communities by oppressive measures of one sort
another, may produce much conflict and violence
that the postwar will become period of civil strife