cause he himself
was jammed. He was commanded again and then dragged from the buggy,
clubbed and haled into the police court and fined. The officer who
arrested him swore that he had given frequent trouble, which was
untrue according to reliable testimony and his own statement. This
incident is also told:

A policeman's friend needed a cook. The policeman drove by a negro
home and, seeing a woman on the porch, told her to get in the buggy.
No questions were permitted. She was carried to his friend's home and
told to work. The woman prepared one meal and left the city for the
North.--Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 74: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 75: Johnson, _Report on the Migration from Mississippi_.]

[Footnote 76: Ibid.]

CHAPTER VII

EFFORTS TO CHECK THE MOVEMENT

The departure of the first negroes usually elicited no concern
from the authorities. It was assumed that their actions were merely
expressions of the negro's "love for travel," and that they would
soon return. When, however, they did not return and hosts of others
followed, the white South became deeply concerned and endeavored to
check the movement. Throughout the exodus drastic legislation and
force were employed. In Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi and Georgia
laws were passed in an effort to suppress the activities of labor
agents. Licenses were made prohibitively high; labor agents were
arrested and heavily fined. In some cases their coming was penalized
to prohibit their operations entirely and they frequently suffered
physical injury.

In Florida labor recruiting early assumed a serious aspect. Precaution
was, therefore, taken to impede the progress of the work of labor
agents among negroes, at first by moral suasion and then by actual
force. The cities and towns of this State enacted measures requiring
a very high license of labor agents, imposing in case of failure to
comply with these regulations, a penalty of imprisonment. For example,
in Tampa when these operations were brought to the attention of
the authorities, Joe Robinson, a negro officer, was detailed to
investigate the matter. He discovered that one Joyce and another negro
named Alex Reeves were implicated in the movement. These men were
charged with having collected $7 from each of several hundred negroes
who wanted to go to Pennsylvania. A meeting among the negroes of Tampa
was then held to secure pl