They turn out to be the robbers of
the Negroes, in case they do not live in a community where an enlightened
public opinion frowns down upon this crime.
During the later eighties and the early nineties there were some other
interstate movements worthy of notice here. The mineral wealth of the
Appalachian mountains was being exploited. Foreigners, at first, were
coming into this country in sufficiently large numbers to meet the demand;
but when this supply became inadequate, labor agents appealed to the
blacks in the South. Negroes then flocked to the mining districts of
Birmingham, Alabama, and to East Tennessee. A large number also migrated
from North Carolina and Virginia to West Virginia and some few of the same
group to Southern Ohio to take the places of those unreasonable strikers
who often demanded larger increases in wages than the income of their
employers could permit. Many of these Negroes came to West Virginia as is
evidenced by the increase in Negro population of that State. West Virginia
had a Negro population of 17,980 in 1870; 25,886 in 1880; 32,690 in 1890;
43,499 in 1900; and 64,173 in 1910.[25]
[Footnote 1: _Atlantic Monthly_, LXIV, p. 222; _Nation_, XXVIII,
pp. 242, 386.]
[Footnote 2: Thompson, _Reconstruction in Georgia_, p. 69.]
[Footnote 3: Williams, _History of the Negro Race_, II, p.
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