INTRODUCTION 



The recent spectacular movement of Negroes northward 

 awoke the people of the United States for the first time to 

 the realization that the colored population is steadily shift- 

 ing. In 1910 there were more than a million Negroes living 

 "In the North and West, but it was not until the exodus of 

 1916 and 1917 assumed such startling proportions that 

 —Negro migration became a nation-wide topic of interest. < 

 Southern planters now realize that they are confronted 

 with a serious labor shortage, and that the future of their 

 section is inextricably involved in the condition of the 

 Negro population. The concentration of large numbers of 

 Negroes in northern industries, the cessation of European 

 immigration, and the increased apprehension concerning the 

 reliability of many of the foreign groups now in industry, 

 have made the Negro a very important factor in the national 

 labor situation. Men in industry are looking to the black 

 population as a reservoir of good and thoroughly "Amer- 

 ican" labor to be drawn upon in the future. 

 ^-The social consequences of this shift in population are 

 of no less significance than the economic. While Southern 

 planters feel the pinch of the loss of labor, thoughtful peo- 

 ple of the South are wondering just what changes they 

 should make in race relations in order to make their section 

 a better place for Negroes to live. While men in big busi- 

 ness in the North welcome this increase in their labor force, 

 social workers realize that this flow of large numbers of 

 raw, village and small-town laborers into our most highly 

 organized industrial communities, increases their problems 

 \jit a rate all out of proportion to the increase in population. 

 What has not been realized is that for the past fifty 

 Qrears the forces underlying this movement have been oper- 



