state, which accompanied the exodus
in justification of it, had begun to be emphasized as the cause of the
movement that a great exodus took place in the State. The principal
occasion here was the unfortunate lynching of Anthony Crawford. A
negro newspaper with a correspondent in Abbeville said:

The lynching of Anthony Crawford has caused men and women of
this State to get up and bodily leave it. The lynching of Mr.
Crawford was unwarranted and uncalled for and his treatment
was such a disgrace that respectable people are leaving daily.
When they begin to leave in the next few weeks like they have
planned, this section will go almost into hysterics as some
sections of Georgia and Alabama are doing because they are
leaving for the North to better their industrial condition.
Crawford is said to have been worth $100,000 in property. His
wife and five sons have been ordered to leave. Word comes that
neighbors are beginning to leave and the number the first of
the week reached 1,000. The cry now is--"Go north, where there
is some humanity, some justice and fairness." White people
have accelerated the movement for the race to move north.

This, however, accounts principally for the spread of the movement as
accomplished by northern capital which, hitting the South in spots,
made it possible for a wider dissemination of knowledge concerning the
North, and actually placed in the North persons with numerous personal
connections at home. The husbands and fathers who preceded their
families could and did command that they follow, and they in turn
influenced their neighbors. It appears that those who came on free
transportation were largely men who had no permanent interests or
who could afford to venture into strange fields. This indiscriminate
method of many of the transporting agencies undoubtedly made it
possible for a great number of indigent and thriftless negroes simply
to change the scene of their inaction. Yet it is unquestionably true
that quite a large proportion of those who went North in this fashion
were men honestly seeking remunerative employment, or persons who left
through sheer desperation. In the second stage of the movement the
club organizations, special parties and chartered cars did most
perhaps to depopulate little communities and drain the towns and
cities.

This is easily to be accounted for. The free trains, carrying mainly
men, were uncertain