they were in danger
of a clash with the authorities. If they discouraged it, they were
accused of being bought up to hold negroes in bondage. If a pastor
attempted to persuade negroes to stay, his congregation and his
collection would be cut down and in some cases his resignation
demanded. In some of the smaller communities the pastors settled this
difficulty by following their flock, as was the case of three who left
Hattiesburg, Mississippi, following their congregations. Two lumber
companies in Mississippi employed a negro to lecture for the purpose
of discouraging the exodus. He was handsomely paid, but he was
unheeded. Even now he is held in contempt by his former friends.

The devout and religious saw God in the movement. It was inspired,
they said, else why could so many thousand negroes all be obsessed at
once with the same impulse. There were set afloat rumors that a great
calamity was about to befall the Southland. In Georgia and Alabama,
hundreds believed that God had cursed the land when he sent droughts
and floods and destructive pests to visit them. The number of negroes
needed in the North was counted in millions; the wages offered were
fabulous and the letters that came from the vanguard painted pictures
of a land of plenty. From some communities a small group would leave,
promising to inform those behind of the actual state of affairs. For
a week or more there would follow a tense period of "watchful waiting"
and never ending anxiety, when finally there would arrive a card
bearing the terse report "Everything pritty," or "Home ain't nothing
like this." On this assurance, a reckless disposition of household
effects would follow.[46]

The towns quite naturally were the first to feel the effect. There,
the pass rider--the labor agent--could move about more freely. People
lived in closer contact and news circulated more rapidly; the papers
came in regularly and the negroes themselves could see those leaving.
On market days when the country folk reached town they got their first
impulse from the commotion. Young country boys failed to return to
quiet isolation, and sturdy sensible farmers whose whole lives had
been spent on the farm, could not resist the temptation. As they
returned they informed their neighbors, saying: "They are leaving town
by the thousands," or "Man, colored folks are leaving in droves for
the North." There are cases of men who left their fields half
plowed and journeyed to the city a