t all about? The next club for
the North was leaving on May 18. The second-hand furniture store
and junk shop were practically overflowing. People were selling out
valuable furniture such as whole bedroom sets for only $2. One family
that I knew myself sold a beautiful expensive home for only $100. In
fact people almost gave away their houses and furnishings. Finally,
the night for the club to leave came and the crowds at the train were
so large that the policemen had to just force them back in order to
allow the people to get on and off. After the train was filled with as
many people as it could hold, the old engine gave one or two puffs and
pulled out, bound for the promised land."

"A very close neighbor of ours," says one, "left for the North. He had
a very small family. He left because his youngest son, who had been
north a few months, came home with a considerable amount of money
which he had saved while on his trip. The father made haste and sold
all he had. His son got him a pass. He said it was far better for him
to be in the North where he could stand up like a man and demand his
rights; so he is there. His daughter Mary remained at home for some
time after the family had gone. She finally wrote her father to send
her a pass, which he did. She had a small boy that was given her. She
was not able to take him and care for him as she would like. Her next
door neighbor, a very fine woman who had no children, wanted a child
so Mary gave it to her. To secure better wages and more freedom his
oldest son went to East St. Louis and remained there until June. Then
he left for Chicago. This family sold their chickens and rented their
cattle to some of the people in that community."--Work and Johnson,
_Report on the Migration during the World War_.]

[Footnote 49: Work and Johnson, _Report on the Migration during the
World War_.]

[Footnote 50: Ibid.]

[Footnote 51: _The New York Age_, August 16, 1916.]

[Footnote 52: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 53: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 54: Work, _Report on the Migration from Alabama_.]

CHAPTER V

THE CALL OF THE SELF-SUFFICIENT NORTH

A surviving custom of servitude has consigned the mass of negroes
to the lower pursuits of labor. Even at this it would be possible to
live, for there would be work. In the North, however, such employment
has been monopolized by foreign immigrants clearing