City and Inter-State Migration 127 



crease of at least 27,844. 4 Some 3,800 of this loss was due 

 to encroachment of town limits on rural area, but this 

 leaves a discrepancy of about 34,500 to be accounted for 

 by the movement from the urban counties. 



The extent to which one of these small towns draws on 

 its surrounding rural areas for Negro population is further 

 illustrated by the following table compiled from a first 

 hand investigation made by the writer in 1913 covering 

 about 75 per cent of the population of a town. 5 



Birthplace of Heads of Negro Families. 



Athens & Clarke County 635 Jackson 31 



Oconee 77 Morgan 20 



Oglethorpe 55 Franklin 16 



Wilkes 51 Madison 14 



Greene 46 Distant Counties 200 



Elbert 34 



Total 1,179 



Thus 54 per cent of the heads of families in Athens were 

 born in the town or in Clarke County. Twenty-nine per 

 cent were born in the counties which cluster around Clarke 

 and 17 per cent in more distant counties. 



This condition further reflects itself in the fact that in 

 towns whose activities are predominantly for the surround- 

 ing rural area the proportion of Negroes in the total popu- 

 lation tends to vary with the proportion in the surrounding 

 rural areas. White people form a higher proportion of the 

 population in all towns than they form in the surround- 

 ing rural areas, but the variations in this proportion depend 

 on the variations in the surrounding rural areas. For in- 

 stance, of the towns under 10,000 in population in Georgia, 

 those located in very black counties — Albany, Americus, 

 Bainbridge, Cordele, Cuthbert, Dawson, Fort Valley, Mil- 

 ledgeville, Sandersville, Thomasville, Valdosta, Washington 

 and Waynesboro, have marked Negro majorities. The 

 towns of Barnesville, Covington, Griffin, LaGrange 



*See Table 16. 



5 The Negroes of Athens, Ga., p. 7. 



