City and Inter-State Migration 139 



fo r the apparently unreasonable doings of many who give 



up i-^nnri positions or sap-jti^; y^Jllf^Jhj™^^ Or good 



busi nesses to go No rth." 



In speaking of the more definite causes of the move- 

 ment he continues: 



"The treatment acorded the Negro always stood second, 

 whe n not' first, amuiig die leasons given by Negroes for 

 leavin g the ijouth . 1 talked with all classes of colored peo- 

 ple from Virginia to Louisiana, farm hands, tenants, farm- 

 ers, hack drivers, porters, mechanics, barbers, merchants, 

 insurance men, teachers, heads of schools, ministers, drug- 

 gists, physicians, lawyers, and in every instance the matter 

 of treatment came to the front voluntarily. This is the 

 all-absorbing, burning question among the Negroes." 



It is this "treatment," which operates more and more 

 as a cause for race movement as the Negro develops 

 a fuller group consciousness. It demands the attention 

 of the really constructive statesmen of the country. Although 

 this is a topic which has as many angles as there are race 

 contacts in the South, the most discussed phases are housing, 

 protection and justice in the courts and various institutional 

 provisions for colored people. These tend more to cause 

 the movement to cities than to influence the movements 

 from one country district to another. 



Ho using. — Negro rental property is notoriously a high 



yielding inv^mpn t in .^nntViAm tnwnc anH sanitary COn- 

 HitJrmc Jn many nf the "NTpprrp, dJS,^^* "* thggp towns have 



b een properly termed atr ocious. 



A first hand study of a Piedmont town and educational 

 center in Georgia revealed the following conditions i 11 



Rooms Occupied by Negro Families: 

 Number of Families Number of Families 



Occupying Occupying 



1 room 148 5 rooms 43 



2 rooms 517 6 rooms 27 



3 rooms 313 7 rooms 9 



4 rooms 156 Over 7 rooms 11 



Less than 5 rooms 1,134 5 or more rooms 90 



11 See The Negroes of Athens, Ga., opp. cite, Chapter III. 



