ion; and
the movement has taken place in spite of the negro's economic handicap
in the North. Within the same period Chicago increased her negro
population 46.3 per cent and Columbus, Ohio, 55.3 per cent. This
increase was wholly at the expense of the South, for the rural
communities of the North are very sparsely populated with negroes
and the increment accruing from surplus birth over deaths is almost
negligible.[10]

When any attempt is made to estimate the volume of this most recent
movement, however, there is introduced a confusing element, for it can
not definitely be separated from a process which has been in operation
since emancipation. Another difficulty in obtaining reliable
estimates is the distribution of the colored population over the rural
districts. It is next to impossible to estimate the numbers leaving
the South even on the basis of the numbers leaving the cities. The
cities are merely concentration points and they are continually
recruiting from the surrounding rural districts. It might be stated
that 2,000 negroes left a certain city. As a matter of fact, scarcely
half that number were residents of the city. The others had moved in
because it was easier to leave for the North from a large city, and
there was a greater likelihood of securing free transportation or
traveling with a party of friends. It is conservatively stated, for
example, that Birmingham, Alabama, lost 38,000 negroes. Yet within
a period of three months the negro population had assumed its usual
proportions again.[11] Prior to the present migration of negroes,
there was somewhat greater mobility on the part of the white than on
the part of the negro population. As for example, according to

the census of 1910 of 68,070,294 native whites, 10,366,735 or 15.2 per
cent were living in some other division than that in which they were
born. Of 9,746,043 native negroes reported by the census of 1930,
963,153 or 9.9 per cent were living outside the division of birth.[12]
Previous to the present migration, the south Atlantic and the east
south central divisions were the only ones which had suffered a direct
loss in population through the migration of negroes.[13]

The census of 1910 brought out the fact that there had been
considerable migration from the North to the South, as well as from
the South to the North, and from the East to the West. The number of
persons born in the North and living in the South (1,449,229) was not
very differ