NEGROES: Migration

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The Federal Council of Churches on March 9 published the report of a commission which investigated Negro migration in this country. No figures are available on the extent of the movement of Negroes to the North. Reports from Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia show, however, that more than the usual number of Negroes are arriving from the South. The commission predicts from present indications that this migration will increase during the Spring and Summer.

In contrast with this movement, which has become definitely established ever since the war, is a movement of southern Negroes to Mexico. As yet the latter migration is insignificant. Fifteen families from Oklahoma crossed the border to take up homesteads. But the International Community Welfare League declares that a delegation of Negroes recently visited President Obregon and obtained rights to settle in Sonora and other Mexican states, with promises of freedom and equality. The League anticipates a large emigration.

If this second migration should develop, it will constitute a serious addition to the shortage of labor in the South. Northern industry has already drained the South of unskilled labor, to the point where the lack is being gravely felt.