Southern Freedmen Resolve to Move West, 1879

From W.E.B. DuBois, "Economic Cooperation Among Negro Americans," Twelfth Annual Atlanta conference, 1907

Finally all the movements culminated in a great convention at Nashville, Tenn., May 6-9,1879. Here were gathered 139 representatives from Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and the. District of Columbia.... This, the most representative Negro convention ever assembled in the South, said in its address:

Fifteen years have elapsed since our emancipation, and though we have made material advancement as citizens, yet we are forced to admit that obstacles have been constantly thrown in our way to obstruct and retard our progress, Our toil is still unrequited, hardly less under freedom than slavery, whereby we are sadly oppressed by poverty and ignorance, and consequently prevented from enjoying the blessings of liberty, while we are left to the shame and contempt of all mankind. This unfortuate state of affairs is because of the intolerant spirit exhibited on the part of the men who control the state governments of the South today. Free speech in many localities is not tolerated. The lawful exercise of the rights of citizenship is denied when majorities must be overcome. Proscription meets us on every hand; in the school-room, in the church that sings praises to that God who made of one blood all the nations of the earth; in places of public amusement, in the jury box, and in the local affairs of government we are practically denied the rights and privileges of freemen.

We can not expect to rise to the dignity of true manhood under the system of labor and pay as practically carried out in some portions of the South today. Wages are low at best, but when paid in scrip having no purchasing power beyond the prescribed limits of the landowner, it must appear obviously plain that our condition must ever remain the same; but with a fair adjustment between capital and labor, we as a race, by our own industry, would soon be placed beyond want and in a self-sustaining condition . . . . . .

Resolved, That it is the sense of this conference that the great current of migration which has for the past few months taken so many of our people from their homes in the South, and which is still carrying hundreds to the free and fertile West, should be encouraged and kept in motion until those who remain are accorded every right and privilege guaranteed by the constitution and laws.

Resolved, That we recommend great care on the part of those who migrate. They should leave home well prepared with certain knowledge of localities to which they intend to move; money enough to pay their passage and enable them to begin life in their new homes with prospect of ultimate success.