The changing race relationship in the Border and Northern States

Table Of Contents

Chapter Page

Preface 3

I. Migration 5

Preface

Some twenty-five years ago Henry Grady was invited to deliver an address in Boston on the New South. On his way to Boston he stopped for a day in New York City, where he met a staunch Southern friend, who asked, with interest, what he would say to the people in Boston about the South. Grady replied: "For the life of me, I don't know. I can think of a score of things which, if I do not say, the people of Georgia will lynch me when I return to that State, and which, if I do say, the people of Boston will skin me alive before I can leave town. " I suppose every one who has spoken or written anything on the Negro question has felt himself in somewhat the same predicament.

Six years ago I began the study of the Negro problem. Since that time I have tried to take advantage of the opportunities afforded me to gain a correct and sane view of the problem. After the subject of this thesis came to my mind I went to several large public libraries and read everything I could find on the Negro problem. Then I traveled several thousand miles, going to a number of the largest cities and towns to investigate the real race relationship. In addition I have written over a hundred letters to authors, writers, social workers, investigators, and other public men and women who are in a position to give accurate information, many of whom have written me the results of their investigations on different points and their opinions, etc., for all of which I am indeed grateful.

My purpose in writing my thesis on this subject is primarily to show that the Northern white people have lost their war-time sentiment for the Negro race, and are becoming more hostile to his presence and less interested in his welfare; and secondarily, to show that the Southern white people have lost some of their war-time sentiment and are becoming more interested in the uplift and welfare of the Negro race.

I purposed not to go below the Southern Border States, nor into the Western States, but I have quite often had to overstep my boundary. So many boards, conferences, conventions, etc., are designated as Southern, Northern, and Western, which boundaries cut some sections and States in twain, and do all their business in one central body, that I have been forced to go over my boundary. Then I have occasionally referred to some specific thing out of my boundary to draw a comparison or to bring out more clearly some point under consideration.

I do not think I have written a mere tu quoque argument. Such a puerile performance, I fear, would be perilous for me. I did not intend to write a defence of the South and a condemnation of the North, nor vice versa. I have written of conditions just as I have found them, and I have expressed my views frankly about conditions which the data I have collected sustain.

Hannibal Gerald Duncan

Moravian Falls, N. C, September, 1919.