The South Wants Its Negroes Back, Aug. 19, 1919

From The Commonwealth, Scotland Neck, N.C., Aug. 19, 1919

Negroes Should Return South

Memphis, Tenn., Aug. 19—Plenty of farm and mill work, better wages than ever before paid and improved living conditions await Southern negroes who have gone to the North and who are now said to be clamoring to return to the South, according to employers here.

Southern farmers and plantation owners want the southern negroes back. If there were some method of getting in touch with them it is declared the expense of their return to Dixie would be willingly borne. This will hold especially true for the next few weeks, because there is need of negroes who know how to take care of the cotton crop.

But these employers say they do not want northern-born and reared negroes. They would prefer to bring in foreign labor they assert.