their belief in it, but they were in most cases speedily silenced. A
Methodist minister was sent to jail because he was said to have been
enticing laborers to go north and work for a New York firm, which
would give employment to fifty of his people. The tactics adopted
by influential persons who favored the movement, therefore, were of
necessity covert and very much guarded.

One of the chief stimuli was discussion. The very fact that negroes
were leaving in large numbers was a disturbing factor. The talk in the
barber shops and grocery stores where men were wont to assemble soon
began to take the form of reasons for leaving. There it was the custom
to review all the instances of mistreatment and injustice which fell
to the lot of the negro in the South. It was here also that letters
from the North were read and fresh news on the exodus was first given
out. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi, it was stated that for a while there
was no subject of discussion but the migration. "The packing houses
in Chicago for a while seemed to be everything," said one negro. "You
could not rest in your bed at night for Chicago." Chicago came to be
so common a word that they began to call it "Chi." Men went down to
talk with the Chicago porters on the Gulf and Ship Island Railroad
which ran through the town. They asked questions about the weather in
Chicago. The report was that it was the same as in Hattiesburg.[32]

In every circle the advisability of leaving was debated. In the
churches the pastors, seeing their flocks leaving, at first attempted
to dissuade them. The people refused to come to church. In the church
meetings there were verbal clashes on the matter of the attitude
toward the migration. Some few had been careful enough to go north
and investigate for themselves and friends. A man learned of the North
through a friend whose relatives wrote him from that section. He,
thereupon, decided to pay a visit of two weeks, going in August. The
attitude of the North overwhelmed him. At Fulton, Kentucky, while he
was on the train a white man was sitting in front of him. He wanted to
ask him a question but hesitated fearing that he would be rebuffed.
He finally addressed the stranger, who answered him courteously and
kindly, calling his attention to other points of interest in the
North. At Gary, Indiana, he met a gentleman who said he had been
mayor of Gary for seven years. He described the Gary school system and
promised him an education