s to be lynched, five at a time,
on nothing stronger than suspicion; they have allowed whole
sections to be depopulated of them (notably in several north
Georgia counties); they have allowed them to be whitecapped
and to be whipped, and their homes burned, with only the
weakest and most spasmodic efforts to apprehend or punish
those guilty--when any efforts were made at all. Loss of much
of the State's best labor is one of the prices Georgia is
paying for unchecked mob activity against negroes often
charged only with ordinary crimes. Current dispatches from
Albany, Georgia, in the center of the section apparently most
affected, and where efforts are being made to stop the exodus
by spreading correct information among the negroes, say that
the heaviest migration of negroes has been from those counties
in which there have been the worst outbreaks against negroes.
It is developed by investigation that where there have been
lynchings, the negroes have been most eager to believe what
the emigration agents have told them of plots for the removal
or extermination of the race. Comparatively few negroes have
left Dougherty county, which is considered significant in
view of the fact that this is one of the counties in southwest
Georgia in which a lynching has never occurred.

At Thomasville, Georgia, a mass meeting of colored citizens of the
town with many from the country was held at the court house and
addresses were made by several prominent white men, as well as by
several colored with a view to taking some steps in regard to the
exodus of negroes from this section to the North and West. The whole
sentiment of the meeting was very amicable, the negroes applauding
enthusiastically the speeches of the white men and the advice given by
them. Resolutions were drawn up by a committee expressing the desire
that the people of the two races continue to live together as they
have done in the past and that steps be taken to adjust any difference
between them.[90]

After a conference of three days at Waycross, Georgia, the negroes
came to a decision as to the best manner in which to present their
cause to the white people with a view to securing their cooperation
towards the improvement of conditions in the South to make that
section more habitable. "There are four things of which our people
complain," they said, "and this conference urges our white f