Agriculture and Prejudice 23 



churches and the patronage of rural schools is composed of 

 those Negroes who have been able to attach themselves to 

 the land. s 



The masses of Negroes did not attain their stragetic posi- 

 tion in agriculture through deliberate planning. They are 

 farmers merely because they happen to have been born in 

 the country and because the white land-owners can utilize 

 their labor most profitably on the farm. In the past, agri- 

 culture has been the method of obtaining a livelihood with 

 which colored men were most familiar. Slavery was their 

 school, rather a hard school at times, nevertheless a school 

 where they learned the white man's lessons of thrift, religion 

 and agriculture. The hoe, the plow and the cotton basket 

 became friends and served them well after emancipation. 

 The lesson that America, unlike Africa, demands continued 

 labor if a man is to survive, was also a part of the program 

 of slavery. These lessons were more or less imperfectly 

 learned, yet, without some knowledge of them it is incon- 

 ceivable that an African population could have survived in 

 America under a system of free competition. 



But the passing of the plantation system has caused almost 

 revolutionary changes in the South since the Civil war. The 

 change in land tenure is to be noted chiefly in the develop- 

 ment of radically new relations of the Negro to the land. 

 From a condition of an absolutely dependent laborer, the 

 Negro has advanced to the strategic position in agriculture 

 outlined above. Still more radical has been the shift of a 

 considerable number to northern industries. These changes 

 have been accompanied by a remarkable set of social phe- 

 nomena. The presence of varying degrees of agricultural 

 opportunity in different sections has produced a start- 

 ling amount of migration, a redistributiion of the popula- 

 tion and changes in its density. Furthermore, the different 

 degrees of opportunity have acted as a selective force on 

 the Negro population. They are responsible for important 



