GIFT OF 
 Author 
 
The Redistribution 
 
 of the" 
 
 American 
 Negro 
 
 By A. S. Van de Graaff 
 
 | 
 
 Tuscaloosa, Alabama 
 <f 
 
HE presence of the negro in the South in dis- 
 portionate numbers was the determining- fac- 
 
 tor in the political and constitutional history 
 
 : of the United States down to. 1877. From the 
 settlement of the Tilden-Hayes electoral con- 
 
 ._ iest the race problem of the South has not di 
 rectly influenced federal legislation. l>ut the discussion of 
 that problem which began with reconstruction has not ceas 
 ed, and perhaps it vet remains "the subject more often treat 
 ed, though less understood, than any other in our social 
 life." With the return of the Republicans to power it has 
 been recently resumed in Congresjand though it does not 
 now appear that legislation will result, conditions make 
 it probable that the- discussion is to become more general 
 than for many years past. L have thought it opportune to 
 present facts drawn from the more recent census reports 
 which strong! v support the view that the solution of the 
 problem which was the legacy of slavery, may safely be 
 left as heretofore, to the unaided operation of the funda 
 mental economic principle which determines the move 
 ments of men in freedom. 
 
 My studies in statistics began in 1884 with the reading 
 of Judge Tourgee s "Appeal to Caesar," an argument for 
 federal aid to education in the South based upon his fore 
 cast, from a comparison of the census of 1880 with those 
 of 1860 and 1870, that before this time we would have in 
 the States between Maryland and Texas "eight black re 
 publics," in which the preponderance of the negroes would 
 be so great as to compel their control. Jiorn in Alabama, 
 carried from it in 1867 to grow up on the Pacific Coast, 
 and receiving my college training in Xew England, I had 
 taken "The New South" as my commencement theme, and 
 in the glow of boyish sentiment had returned to the State 
 of my birth as my chosen home. I found it harder to dis 
 regard this anticipation of the author of "A Eool s Errand" 
 than it had been to put aside those of my friends who had 
 warned against Alabama s backwardness, and what then 
 appeared its necessarily abiding malaria and recurrent 
 yellow-fever. His forecast was not only supported by 
 what also then appeared the facts of statistics, but how 
 ever unwelcome, was in accord with my own first impres 
 sions. I had never forgotten my first observed Fourth of 
 July in 1866, when the grove between the homes of my 
 grandmothers , where I had seen Forrest s cavalry gath 
 ered for their surrender the year before, overflowed with 
 what had lived in mv child-memory as a limitless sea of 
 
black faces a recollection recently revived by the sights 
 of "Big Circus Day" at the county-seat sixteen miles 
 away, between which and my birth-place I was told that 
 there now lived but a single white family. But I knew 
 that Alabama s Black Belt was here hardly more than 
 two counties wide ; that there were in the State more 
 "white" counties than "black ;" and that in many the white 
 majorities were relatively greater than any held by the 
 blacks. I knew too that it was in the white counties only 
 that the stirrings of new industrial life had been felt. I 
 went to the census reports to calculate for myself the 
 percentages and rates of increase of whites and blacks in 
 all the counties of Alabama, and I did not stop until I had 
 them for every county in every other Southern State. 
 Putting down my results upon a large map I soon saw 
 things that were comforting. There was no Southern 
 State in which the unequal distribution of the negroes 
 made by slavery in massing them upon the more fertile 
 soils, had not left as in Alabama, differences within itself 
 like that which distinguished South from North. For 
 much the greater part of the far-spread and diverse terri 
 tory embraced within the South I saw that its race prob 
 lem had little more direct or immediate significance than 
 for the North the percentage of negroes was too small 
 to materially affect the community life. I soon came to 
 believe that the question whether the South was to be per 
 manently differentiated by negro populations large enough 
 to determine standards or to dominate, was to turn upon 
 whether the negro majori^Tes placed by slavery in its low 
 lands and greater river valleys were to remain fixed and 
 to grow under freedom, or on the other hand, to diminish 
 and break up. And when the returns from the census of 
 1890 became available I learned that the rural-dwelling 
 negro was nowhere fixed, but everywhere fluid ; and mov 
 ing not only "southward and westward" as stated in the 
 general report of that census, but also from the planta 
 tions into the towns and cities, and from these passing 
 on to those of the North a movement not yet large 
 enough to receive general recognition, but in my judgment 
 much the more significant. For my fundamental fact of 
 direct observation was that the negro was failing as a 
 farmer. The discipline of slavery had left him only a 
 "hand." The life of the quarter and the work of the 
 squad on the big plantation had not given him the quali 
 fications required of the successful small farmer, self-re- 
 
 (3) 
 
 748403 
 
liancc and self-control, and strong- love for home and fam 
 ily the indispensable attribute of a stable country-dwell 
 ing people. And my anticipation was that as he had thus 
 far failed, in any broad view, to lit into any new agricul 
 tural relationship ; as he had failed to make good either as 
 wage -hand, share-hald, or tenant on the plantation, so he 
 would continue to fail, and would continue to carry his 
 muscle and his superior fitness for work admitting of be 
 ing done in massed numbers under supervision to the 
 cities and towns, the construction camps and mining dis 
 tricts ; and because of the greater demand and better con 
 ditions there, progressively more rapidly as he came to 
 know these, into the larger industrial centers and muscle- 
 markets of the Xorth. 
 
 This observation and this forecast I set forth in a former 
 article with considerable detail and elaboration of argu 
 ment, making much reference to the different "regions" 
 developed upon my map by my racial classification of 
 the counties. And though these divisions have in my own 
 thought become of less importance now, I shall retain 
 them in this attempt to show that my "theory" of a quar- 
 ter-cx iiturv ago. has become a "condition,," as President 
 Cleveland drew the distinction between the words, in the 
 present discussion of the question under consideration. A 
 brief preliminary statement of the extent of the South, 
 however, and of the relative proportions of the two races 
 within it taken as a whole, may be helpful. 
 
 My South includes seventeen States, for on historical 
 and political grounds too obvious to require statement, I 
 have included Missouri, and excluded the Distrct of Co 
 lumbia. Extending west from the short northern boun 
 dary of Delaware with Mason and Dixon s Line, the Ohio 
 River, and then the boundaries of Missouri, Oklahoma, and 
 Texas, to the Mexican Border beyond El Paso, it covers 
 an area of 947,000 square-miles ; greater by 97,000 than 
 that of the twenty States, which with the District of Co 
 lumbia, will in this article be designated as the North, 
 while those of the Mountain and Pacific groups will be 
 referred to as the West. By virtue of milder climate, 
 more copious and more constant rainfall, greater variety 
 of agricultural products and equal if not superior endow 
 ment in the natural wealth yielded by mine and forest and 
 in those modern world-transforming sources of energy, 
 oil and water-power, perhaps better adapted than either 
 North or West for the modern industrial civilization, the 
 
 (4) 
 
South remained in 1860 almost entirely dependent upon 
 agriculture, and held only 30% of the white population of 
 the United States, but almost 95% of the black. The 
 blacks then constituted more than one-third of its total 
 population, the numbers stated in thousands being 8,037,- 
 000 whites and 4,201,000 blacks. In 1920 the numbers were 
 3tZ,031,000 whites and 8,981,000 blacks, the blacks consti 
 tuting less than one-fourth of the total. Of ^ the three 
 divisions into which the black majority counties fell on 
 my map, the "Texas Black Belt" was never of importance 
 except as separating two of the white majority regions. 
 It comprised only fifteen counties irregularly grouped in 
 the vicinity of the City of Houston. The census of 1890 
 showed the white rate of increase to be the greater, and 
 in the next decade this ran up to 43% against a black rate 
 of 16. The census of 1910 showed a white gain of only 
 9%, but there was a black loss of 7%: seven counties had 
 lost their black majorities, and in the district there were 
 128,000 whites to 137,000 blacks, the black percentage fall 
 ing in twenty years from 61 to 52. The persistence of this 
 trend down to 1920, which may be confidently assumed, 
 though as yet we have only the State rates of increase ^ 
 22% for the whites and 7% for the blacks will have caus 
 ed the complete disappearance of the division as such. 
 
 In the "Mississippi Bottom," an area about as large as 
 Illinois, and sufficiently described by its name, with the 
 added statement that it sends a narrow branch up the 
 Red River entirely across Louisiana, the black percent 
 age in 1890 was 69, and in several of its counties the ne 
 groes outnumbered the whites more than ten to one. 
 Their decennial rate of increase was here the greater also, 
 owing to immigration from the eastward. But in the 
 next decade this was more than offset by an influx of 
 whites, and the census of 1910 showed the white rate to 
 have continued to rise until it reached 25%, while the 
 black had fallen to 10%, and the black percentage to 65, 
 the whites numbering 763,000 and the blacks 1,350,000. 
 We have no complete returns from the census of 1920 as 
 to the counties of any of the four States contributing to 
 this region. But we know that those of Louisiana and in 
 larger part those of Mississippi also, felt the full force of 
 the boll-weevil invasion which combined with the insistent 
 demands of the northern labor-market during the world 
 war to cause the first real exodus of negroes from the 
 South. Both States showed loss of black population in 
 
 (5) 
 
1920, as did also Tennessee, while Arkansas dropped its 
 black rate of increase to less than 7% the lowest in its 
 history. \Ye know also that in 66 of the 74 counties of 
 this region the percentage of blacks was lowered in 
 many of them heavily. The inference is strong that the 
 relative gain of the whites in this region was much greater 
 in the last decade than in that preceding, and probably 
 sufficient, if maintained, to make it easily possible for the 
 region as a whole, heavy as was the preponderance of its 
 blacks, to follow the Texas Black Belt into the column 
 of white majorities before 1940. 
 
 Much larger, quite different, and differing much more 
 within itself, is "The Lowlands," our third region of black 
 majorities, in which these were never unbroken, however, 
 and none at any time attained the high maximum reach 
 ed in the Mississippi Bottom, from which its western end 
 is separated only by the width of single counties stretch 
 ed along the watershed between the Yazoo and the Toni- 
 bigbee. This extends in a strip hardly a hundred miles 
 wide southeast across Mississippi and Alabama to Mont 
 gomery, where narrpwing to a single county it turns as 
 on a pivot to the no rtheast, and throwing a wedge down 
 the valley of the Chattahoochee into Florida, holds on 
 across middle Georgia to widen out along the Savannah 
 River to the Atlantic coast, sending" southward along this 
 a narrower spur down into Florida again, but continuing 
 in its greatest width northward to cover all of South Car 
 olina except its six northwestern counties ; almost the 
 eastern half of North Carolina, and all of Tidewater Vir 
 ginia ; and find its end beyond the Potomac in the three 
 southernmost counties of Maryland. The percentage of 
 blacks in 1890 was 61, but this was the average between 
 extremes varying from more than 85 in some counties of 
 Alabama down to less than 30 in some counties of North 
 Carolina across which the black majorities were not un 
 broken even in 1880, and in which wider gaps have been 
 opened between them in each succeeding decade until in 
 1910 only two small black spots appeared on the southern 
 border, separated by more than one hundred miles from 
 another on the coast-line, and by an equal interval from a 
 narrow fringe of ten counties along the northern boun 
 dary of the State the black percentage in all the thir 
 teen counties taken together being only 55 and in only 
 three going above 60. In Alabama on the other hand, the 
 twenty black counties remained unbroken, and though 
 
 (6) 
 
fluctuating somewhat in an ebb and flow that has seemed 
 to alternate between the two races in decennial periods 
 showed the same black percentage of 72 in 1910 as in 
 1880. Yet even in this region of wide variations and sharp 
 contradictions, which the very maps themselves present 
 "rent with debate, many-spotted with question," the re 
 cords of the changes and shifting currents of forty years 
 converge to show beyond question the same process of 
 disintegration for the black majorities in all its extent. 
 The census of 1890 placed within it 35 white counties ; 
 in 1900 there were 52, and in 1910 there were 69. The 
 census of 1890 showed the whites gaining the faster in 
 more than half the counties ; that of 1910 raised the pro 
 portion to near two-thirds. For the region the white 
 rate was the greater at each census 14% against 8 in 
 1890; 17 against 13 in 1900; 17 against 7 in 1910. For the 
 twenty year period ending in 1910 the numerical increase 
 of the white minority was the greater, and the black per 
 centage fell to 59. A decline much greater has taken 
 place in the last decade. At this writing we have the full 
 county reports only for Alabama; they show the relative 
 gain of the whites in all the twenty counties^the absolute 
 loss of the blacks in all but three; the change of two over 
 to white majorities ; and in the aggregate a white gain of 
 12% against a black loss of 11% changes like those in 
 the Texas Black Belt in 1910, and such as were likewise 
 then shown at the other end of this region in Virginia. 
 No less significant of the decisive turn at last reached in 
 this region also, is the drop in the black percentage of 
 the State of South Carolina between 1910 and 1920 from 
 55 to 51, the lowest since 1810. With South Carolina lead 
 ing the way, this region also may in its entirety follow 
 the Texas Black Belt in 1930: at all events it must be 
 broken into segments isolated like the Texas Black Belt, 
 and hardly larger ; and all destined to repeat its history. 
 Of the white majority regions the "Gulf Coast" includes 
 more than four-fifths of Florida ; one-fourth of both Geor 
 gia and Alabama ; one-third of Mississippi, in which it 
 reaches up to a junction with the "Upland South"; one- 
 fourth of Louisiana, and twenty-five counties of eastern 
 Texas. In 18$0 the black percentage was 33; for the two 
 succeeding decades there was a continued heavy immi 
 gration of both races, the blacks coming in to work in the 
 turpentine and lumber industries of its large forest areas, 
 and showing a slightly greater rate of increase though not 
 
 (7) . 
 
enough to materially raise their percentage, the white 
 population in 1910. numbering 2,173,000 and the black 
 1,074,000. With the decline of its turpentine and lumber 
 production in the last ten years, there has been a cessa 
 tion of negro immigration and probably some emigration. 
 In all Florida in 1920 the black rate was only 7%, against 
 a white rate of 44% ; and in the fourteen counties of Ala 
 bama entering into this region the black rate was but 4% 
 against 18 for the whites. 
 
 In the "Western South" there are included one-seventh 
 of Louisiana, six-sevenths of Texas, four-fifths of Arkan 
 sas, and all of Oklahoma and Missouri 414,000 square- 
 miles, or 44% of the South s entire area. Here the black 
 percentage in 1890 w r as only 11. Here there w r as also a 
 continued heavy immigration of both races for the next 
 twenty years but the whites led with a gain of 69% against 
 51. In 1910 there were 8,334,000 whites and 913,000 blacks, 
 the black percentage having fallen to a little less than 10. 
 
 The "Upland South" includes all of Delaware, West Vir 
 ginia, and Kentucky ; all but three counties of both Mary 
 land and Tennessee; something more than half of Vir 
 ginia, of North Carolina, and of Alabama; a fourth of 
 Georgia, and the six northwestern counties of South Car 
 olina and nine northeastern counties of Mississippi. Its 
 area is 210,000 square-miles, slightly more than one-half 
 that of the Western South. In 1890 its white population 
 was four times greater than its black, and the white rate 
 of increase was more than twice the black 19% to 8. In 
 the twenty years following the whites increased by 2,524,- 
 000 or 36% to 9,591,000; while the blacks increased by only 
 256,000 or 15% to 1,974,000, constituting but one-sixth of 
 the total population. Of its 493 counties 251 showed a 
 loss of blacks in 1890; 194 in 1900; 310 in 1910. For the 
 thirty years the only substantial gains for the blacks were 
 in the counties containing cities or belonging to mineral 
 districts. In all agricultural districts the loss of black 
 population has been steady, and cumulatively quite con 
 siderable. In the seven counties of the Tennessee Valley 
 in Alabama the black percentage fell from 43 in 1860 to 25 
 in 1920. In Kentucky a loss of 23,000 blacks in 1910 was 
 followed by one of 26,000 in 1920, although the State holds 
 important and growing mineral districts. Of its 119 coun 
 ties 78 showed loss of blacks in 1890; 60 in 1900; 94 in 
 1910; 104 in 1920. So of the 91 counties of Tennessee in 
 this region. 50 showed such losses in 1890; 42 in 1900; 72 
 
 (8) 
 
in 1910; 75 in 1920; and of the 54 counties from Virginia, 
 39 in 1890; 40 in 1900; 44 in 1910. Even in West Virginia 
 where the black immigration into the coal-mining coun 
 ties was sufficient to make the black rate for the State the 
 greater both in 1900 and 1910, there were like losss in 24 
 of the 54 counties in 1890; in 19 in 1900; in 24 in 1910; in 
 27 in 1922. And in only 12 counties of this State were 
 there as many as 1000 negroes in 1910, and 4 of these held 
 57% of all its negroes. The black percentage of its popu 
 lation was materially -less than that for the United States 
 as a whole; and included in the Upland and Western re 
 gions together there is much more than half of the entire 
 area of the South for which this is true. Upon a recent 
 railroad journey through one of the most beautflul and 
 closely cultivated sections of the Upland South, an ob 
 server keeping lookout from daylight to dark, saw only 
 three negroes at work in the fields and these together 
 among the thousands of whites busy both in the harvest 
 ing and cultivation of their crops. Similar results, but 
 none quite so impressive, have been obtained before. Such 
 observations are of course only suggestive not convinc 
 ing, but they are in line with census returns. In Kentucky 
 the census of 1920 showed 32 counties with less than 2% 
 of negroes : in Tennessee there were 32 with less than 5% \ 
 in Arkansas there were 15 with less than 1%. 
 
 The cumulative effect of our statistical facts may per 
 haps be better realized by contrasting the three white 
 regions with the three black. Upon four-fifths of the 
 South s area, then, in 1910 there were 20,097,000 whites 
 and 3,960,000 blacks, the blacks constituting less than one- 
 sixth of the total population. The twenty year gains were 
 for whites, 6,936,000; for blacks. 1,070,000. Upon the re 
 maining one-fifth there were 3,348,000 whites, and 4,851,000 
 blacks^the black percentage being 59; twenty year gains 
 were for the whites, 46% or 1,058,000; for the blacks 24% 
 or 926,000. 
 
 If we make a geographical division and contrast an 
 Upper South made up of the Upland and Western regions, 
 with the other four as the Lower South, we have for the 
 upper two-thirds of the South area 17,924,000 whites, and 
 2,887,000 blacks, the black percentage being 14: the 
 twenty year gains, for whites 5,921,000 or 49%; for blacks, 
 565,000 or 24%; and for the lower third 5,522,000 whites 
 and 5,925,000 blacks, the black percentage being 52 ; and 
 
 (9) 
 
the twenty year gains for whites 2,072,000 or 60%, for 
 blacks 1,430,000 or 32%. 
 
 If without any grouping we simply contrast the aggre 
 gates of the white majority counties wherever situated, 
 we have more than nine-tenths of the whites of the South 
 or 21.405.000 occupying 85% of its area along with 4,954,- 
 000 blacks, whom they outnumber more than four to one : 
 and less than one-tenth or 2,043,000 occupying the remain 
 ing 157r along with 3,859,000 blacks, by whom they w r ere 
 outnumbered less than two to one. 
 
 This relative distribution and growth of the two races 
 within the South itself as developed down to 1910 only, 
 had seemed to myself to show the working out of our 
 suggested solution of its race problem to be both cer 
 tain and already near at hand. Certainly no De Tocque- 
 ville traveling America and studying that problem in the 
 period immediately preceding the world war, even if he 
 adhered to the view of his predecessor of the nineteenth 
 century that conflict between the races in the South was 
 inevitable, could also have believed the help of their broth 
 ers in the North necessary to assure the success of the 
 whites. As De Tocqueville wrote of the situation of the 
 blacks in the United States after the census of 1830, so 
 eighty years later it might have bee^i written of their po 
 sition in the South taken by itself* the blacks are placed 
 between the ocean and an innumerable people, which al 
 ready extends over them in a dense mass," not as he 
 wrote, "from the icy confines of Canada to the frontiers 
 of Virginia, and from the banks of the Missouri to the 
 Atlantic," but within limits drawn much closer, from the 
 banks of the Delaware to the Rio Grande, and from the 
 eastern foothills of the Alleghanies back to the Missis 
 sippi, and beyond the Missssippi in even great^jfx breadth 
 and preponderant mass. But there is to be no such racial 
 conflict, no such catastrophe, no such explosion, as it was 
 predicted by De Tocqueville and feared by Calhoun, would 
 follow emancipation. The safety-valve was long since 
 opened by the civil war the volume of its discharge was 
 only made greater by that world war of which it has been 
 well said that "one wholly unloaked for result has been 
 to reveal the color line as the question of the twentieth 
 century." If De Tocqueville could again voyage down the 
 Ohio and contrast the two banks, he might yet observe 
 lingering traces of slavery s baleful influence upon the 
 
 (10) 
 
left. But for more than half a century both banks have 
 been alike free, and close observer as he was, he could not 
 fail to discern the change brought to the right bank also 
 by the coming of freedom on the left. There are now 
 more blacks in the border States of the North than in the 
 border States of the South. On the northern side of the 
 old line of divergence which the civil war removed, the 
 number of negroes has been increasing through all of 
 fifty-six years and has had its greatest increase within 
 the last four. On the southern side there has been as 
 steady a decline, at first only relative but later absolute, 
 until in Kentucky there are now fewer negroes than in 
 I860, and the black percentage of its population has be 
 come less than that for the United States as a whole ; 
 until also, as is even more significant, the last census has 
 shown the loss of black population in all the four contigu 
 ous subjacent States Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, 
 and Louisiana. This radical change of trend this de 
 cisive turn toward uniformity in the redistribution of the 
 negroes between North and South under the conditions 
 of freedom, is thus shown to have already operated over 
 wide areas, and it is now being extended over the whole 
 country. The movement of the blacks out of the South 
 assumed proportions during the world war which have 
 caused the returns of the census of 1920 to be received as 
 a revelation and heralded as sensational by some northern 
 editors. They should not have been such to any close ob 
 server, or student of statistics. The movement has been 
 continuous since the surrender of the armies of the Con 
 federacy, and its expansion was a logical anticipation. But 
 the cumulative influences of the war and of the boll- weevil 
 invasion have quickened it beyond all expectation. Con 
 trasts are now presented between groups of States, north 
 ern and southern, even more striking than those between 
 the different regions of the South resulting from the use of 
 the county as the geographical racial unit thirty years 
 ago. Down to 1910 the immigration of the blacks into the 
 North was pretty well confined to the border States from 
 Illinois to New Jersey, and to the City of New York. To 
 this northern territory in order to equalize area with that 
 of my Upland South 1 used to add the District of Colum 
 bia, the three lower ^vew England States, and the part of 
 New York south of a line drawn from Massachusetts 
 northwest corner to Pennsylvania s northeast, making up 
 a total of 206.000 square-miles against 210,000. This "Ne- 
 
 (11) 
 
gro Canaan" as I named it, in 1910 held 840,000 blacks 
 whose decennial rate of 21% compared with one of less 
 than 4% for the 1,974,000 blacks of the Upland South. It 
 contrasted in another way with the Western South, an 
 area twice as large holding only 912,000 negroes. Even 
 then a more informing comparison certainly one more 
 readily followed would have been afforded by adding to 
 the northern territory the remainder of New York, rais 
 ing the area to 246,000 square-miles, and contrasting with 
 the 227,000 of the five southern border States, Delaware, 
 Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, with 
 Tennessee and Virginia added. In the northern group 
 there were 856,000 blacks with a decennial gain of 147.000 ; 
 in the southern 1,891,000 with a decennial loss of 5,000; 
 the half-century gains were in the northern 632,000 or 
 28J% ; in the southern 512,000 or 37% only. Now, from 
 the returns of the census of 1920 we find in the northern 
 group 1,236,000 blacks showing a decennial gain of 380,000 
 or 44%; and in the southern 1,917,000, showing- a gain of 
 26,000 or less than \y 2 %. And if we again extend the 
 comparison back to 1860, as the beginning of the new dis 
 pensation, we have in the northern area an increase of 
 1,002,000 negroes or 448%, against one of 538,000, or 40% 
 only, in the southern. 
 
 A still more striking comparison from the returns of 
 1920 is that between the seven great States of the North 
 leading in negro population, New York, New Jersey, 
 Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan, with 
 the District of Columbia added as before, and those six 
 States of the Lower South South Carolina, Georgia, 
 Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana in which in 
 1830 there was already that "black population accumulat 
 ed along the Gulf of Mexico" which De Tocqueville 
 thought "would have a chance of success, if the American 
 Union is dissolved when the struggle between the two 
 races begins." These were also six of Judge Tourgje s 
 "eight black republics," and for them his anticipation 
 seemed much better grounded than for North Carolina and 
 Virginia, for in 1860 the two races had stood in them on 
 practically even terms, whites outnumbering blacks by 
 only 32,000, whereas in 1880 the blacks outnumbered the 
 whites by 243,000. But while the blacks still led in 1900 
 by 25,000, in 1910 the whites held a majority of 557,000, 
 and this had grown in 1920 to 1,607,000. This rapid rela 
 tive gain of the whites it itself striking enough, but the 
 
 (12) 
 
difference between the rates of growth of the black pop 
 ulation in this supposedly most congenial habitat, and 
 that of the widely differing northern area, is even more 
 so. In the northern territory of 290,000 square-miles in 
 1860 there were 202,500 negroes : in the southern of 287,- 
 000 square-miles, 2,166,000. In 1920 there were in the 
 northern 1,219,000 negroes, showing a decennial gain of 
 409,000 or 50%; in the southern 4,957,000, showing a de 
 cennial loss of 16,000. For the successive twenty year 
 periods beginning with 1860-80 the rates of increase in 
 the northern were respectively 112, 55, and 83%: in the 
 southern 4*7, 39, and 11%. 
 
 This contrast may be startling, but that the figures are 
 only typical may be seen by comparing the black rates of 
 increase for the three great divisions North, West, and 
 South as denned above. For the last three decades be 
 ginning with that ending in 1920 these rates have been 
 in the North, 46, 20, and 25% ; in the West 55, 68, and 12% ; 
 in the South 2, 10, and 17%. For the three twenty year 
 periods since 1860, beginning with that ending in 1920, in 
 the North 74, 52, and 124%; in the West, 160, 156, and 
 165%; in the South 12, 32, and 42%. 
 
 W^hat is to be the effect of this migration of the ne 
 groes, if it is to go on, as certainly it must if our analysis 
 of its origin is sound, with the boll-weevil still stripping 
 the cotton fields, and with the restriction put by the war 
 upon foreign immigration now continued by law r ? 
 
 For the immediate future, in the cotton-growing parts 
 of the South, still more land lying out, or passing from 
 tillage to pasture ; in some parts of the North, possibly 
 even some touch of alarm- or apprehension, if we can take 
 seriously the report telegraphed from Washington to 
 southern papers last spring, that "Cincinnati policemen, 
 noting the arrival of innumerable negroes from Southern 
 States and fearing trouble, have appealed to the W r ar De 
 partment for rifles" ; perhaps, more probably, something 
 more of that small labor upset complained of last March 
 by the general secretary of the Nebraska Chamber of 
 Commerce w^ho wrote from Omaha to commercial sec 
 retaries in Alabama as follows : "In these days of un- 
 
 (13) 
 
employment the situation in many of our northern cities 
 is being complicated by the influx of southern negroes. 
 They do not mix well with negroes natives of the North 
 or of long residence here. In your opinion can anything 
 be done in your State* to stop this movement ? Will the 
 South need "this labor when normal conditions return?" 
 
 But in the long run and in the broad view, only good 
 can come from the continuance of the movement to both 
 South and North, and to whites and blacks alike. In no 
 State of the North was the percentage of blacks as high 
 as 4 in 1920, and in only six States did it reach 2. With 
 the first turn of the industrial tide the cities and indus 
 tries of both North and West will again need and bid 
 for negro labor. For the South answer might well have 
 been made to the Nebraska inquiry by the Secretary of 
 the Montgomery Chamber of Commerce, which within six 
 months preceding had raised $100,000, NOT to bring back 
 any of the 16,000 negroes Montgomery County lost be 
 tween 1910 and 1920, but to induce the coming of white 
 farmers from North and West. Now as twenty-five years 
 ago it is plainly to be seen in agricultural Alabama that 
 progress and prosperity for counties and communities 
 large and small, vary in inverse proportion to the relative 
 numbers of their blacks. Wherever the negroes are in 
 the majority there is stagnation and decay. And this holds 
 in other realms than the material. The negro has risen 
 and is to continue to rise in America. But it is none the 
 less true that American standards are to remain white 
 standards, and community standards ought everywhere 
 to be fixed by the whites. If the number of negroes be 
 such that by their mere mass they fix the community 
 standards, these decline ; the negroes rise more slowly, if 
 they rise at all ; and the whites, who live with them, may 
 themselves sink toward a lower level. This has been al 
 ways felt, if not declared in words, in the South. The 
 life of its black belts has not been acceptable to the white 
 man the standards, political, industrial, and other, of the 
 black belts, have been hardly less unsatisfactory to t 1 
 southern white man than to the man of the North. 
 
 Not alone the breaking up of the big plantation was 
 needed for the realization of Lanier s vision of "The New 
 South" his last prose essay written just before his death 
 
the passing of the black belt was also required. This is 
 now at hand, and with it will also pass that "Solid South," 
 which rose out of it in the last century, and come that 
 "more perfect and indivisible Union, - with parties no 
 longer sectional but truly national, which was the aspi- 
 tation of Webster and Clay and Calhoun alike. 
 
 A. S. VAN DE GRAFF ; 
 Tuscaloosa. Ala 
 
 US) 
 
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 This book is due on the last date stamped below, of 
 
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 Renewed books are subject to immediate 
 
 A"R n 9 1995 
 
 r f RF.nKEi.EY 
 
 LD 2lA-45m-9, 67 
 (H5067slO)476B 
 
 General Library 
 
 University of California 
 
 Berkeley 
 
748403 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY