After "Doing Their Part" In War Industries, Some Negroes Being "Deported" From Northern Cities, 1919

From The Charlotte Observer, as reprinted in The Alamance Gleaner, Graham, N.C., March 13, 1919

The Negro in the North

With the signing of the armistice the tide began turning for the negroes who have been flocking North for wartime employment. It is noted in the press dispatches that the Philadelphia idea of getting rid of the negro is to deport him. A large number of negroes who have been engaged in war industries in Pennsylvania have found themselves thrown upon the charity of the cold North, and the “constabulary” of the State has set about sending them away. Colored organizations in Pennsylvania have sent protests to Secretary of Labor Wilson against this heartless deportation proceedings and have offered co-operation in finding employment for them. It is little the Department of Labor can do, however, in the aid of these out-of-work negroes, and they are being made to feel every day that their Northern friends, when the test comes, care very little about their bodily comfort or salvation of soul. The negro’s dream of a paradise in the North was but shortlived.