therefore, had its beginning
in 1916 and was precipitated as follows: "A national philanthropic
organization arranged with some Northern tobacco growers to import
Negro students from some of the Southern private institutions for
summer work and early in May, 1916, brought the first two trainloads
from Georgia. Then the agent of a large Northern railroad, taking
advantage of the publicity given this venture, used the name of this
organization to get migrants to come North."[25] Other railroads and
steel mills were also in great need for laborers and thus sent their
agents in the South to solicit labor. These agents moved about through
the States of the South and offered at first free transportation to
the prospective laborers and pictured to them in very glowing terms
the high wages and advantages of the North. This they did not have to
do very long, "for the news spread like wild-fire. It was like the
gold fever in '49. Negroes sold their simple belongings and in some
instances valuable land and property and flocked to the Northern
cities, even though they had no objective work in sight."[26]
Regarding this same point, Mr. Ray Stannard Baker holds that during
the spring of 1916 "trains were backed into Southern cities and
hundreds of Negroes were gathered up in a day, loaded into the cars
and whirled away to the North. Instances are given showing that Negro
teamsters left their horses standing in the streets or deserted their
jobs and went to the trains without notifying their employers or even
going home."[27]

The next question which seems in order is whence came these migrants.
As far as is known up to now they came largely from thirteen of the
Southern States and from those lying mainly east of the Mississippi
River. These States are as follows: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma,
South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia--the cotton, tobacco, and
sugar cane regions of the South.[28] Of these the States which paid
the heaviest toll in the number of migrants are Virginia, North
Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and
Tennessee. In this respect Mississippi stands first, Alabama second,
and Georgia third.[29]

When we come to the consideration of the number of Negroes who left
the South during the course of this movement we find here much
uncertainty. This state of affairs is due partly to the fact that the
very beginning of the