-
34 Black Southern Migration and the Transformation of Connecticut, 1917–1941
- Wesleyan University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
239 Although when people think of the beginning of the “Great Migration ” during the period of World I, Chicago often comes to mind, Emmett Scott, Booker T. Washington’s former secretary, thought that the “New England Migration” served as the first instance of the “Great Migration.”1 This movement of thousands of African Americans, beginning around the time of World War I, transformed the demographic make-up of Connecticut. Thousands of blacks, including African American Southerners, black immigrants from the Caribbean, and Cape Verdeans, moved to major urban areas of the state. In turn, these migrants carved out communities within communities. When thousands of Polish, Lithuanian, and Czech workers left Connecticut to return to Europe to fight in World War I, New England tobacco growers urgently tried to locate a replacement labor force. In their frantic search for an alternative workforce, their initial desperation led them to New York. In 1915 Connecticut Leaf Tobacco Association owners and managers recruited 200 eager New York women to work tobacco in a rash move that proved an utter failure for the association, particularly socially.2 The association decided to turn to the National Urban League, one of the nation’s major human rights organizations, for help.3 Seeing opportunity to aid the educational pursuits of young people, Urban League officials sent inquiries about work opportunities to the presidents and leaders of historically black colleges in the South. One of the first people they contacted was President John Hope of Morehouse College. An astute academician and politician, Hope was among the first to recognize that blacks were migrating away from Southern states. While traveling in New England in 1916, Hope saw firsthand Southern African Americans working as “section men with pick and shovel” for Northern railroads. The New Stacey Close 34 Black Southern Migration and the Transformation of Connecticut, 1917–1941 240 Between the Wars York, New Haven, and Hartford railroad lines all had a visible African American presence in their workforce. While Hope would have preferred to have working-class African Americans remain in the South, he muted his criticism of the migrants themselves. Instead, he tossed the blame for the exodus into the political lap of Southern white leaders. He knew that most leading Southern white politicians remained silent on vigilante violence directed at innocent African Americans. In addition, landowners had no qualms about using guns to maintain sharecropping, the economic system that dominated the lives of most African Americans . Although people worked for a share of the crop to be used to offset yearly expenses, most sharecroppers found themselves sinking deep into debt, never receiving enough in compensation to rise to land ownership. However, Hope’s immediate focus was on his students. He carefully oversaw the hiring of twenty-five young men for tobacco work. While these students labored in Connecticut tobacco fields other Morehouse men toiled in summer jobs in the Midwest, other parts of New England, and Pennsylvania.4 Fellow college presidents from African American colleges and universities followed suit. In pursuit of jobs, poor and working class African Americans soon followed the wave of college students. But migrants’ survival depended on their building relationships with people who were already knowledgeable about life in Connecticut . Similarly, New Haven minister Rev. Edward Goin, concerned about the plight of new arrivals, organized to meet their needs by building a social center in a boxcar and enlisting African American students at Yale to provide support. Migrants adopting New Haven as their new home now had advocates from New Haven as part of their network.5 Given the terror many dealt with daily in the South, Connecticut seemed like an oasis for those willing to leave. In Southwest Georgia, for instance, an area from which large numbers of African Americans made the exodus to Connecticut, brutal lynchings were common. On October 4, 1916, white marauders murdered an African American woman from Calhoun County, Georgia for her supposed role in the murder of a local white person.6 Lynchings took place in other counties in areas such as Randolph County, Lee County, and Early County in 1915–1916.7 Some labor recruiters capitalized on this fear to lure workers northward.8 Once migrants decided to make the trek, Southern injustices made their northbound travel difficult. Some African American trav- [34.238.138.162] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 11:05 GMT) Black Southern Migration . . . 1917–1941 / S. Close 241 elers paid equal fares to whites, while others sometimes paid more expensive fares than whites...