The well-established blacks, however, have not been so easily induced to
go. The Negroes in business in the South have usually been loath to leave
their people among whom they can acquire property, whereas, if they go to
the North, they have merely political freedom with no assurance of an
opportunity in the economic world. But not a few of these have given
themselves up to unrelenting toil with a view to accumulating sufficient
wealth to move North and live thereafter on the income from their
investments. Many of this class now spend some of their time in the North
to educate their children. But they do not like to have these children who
have been under refining influences return to the South to suffer the
humiliation which during the last generation has been growing more and
more aggravating. Endeavoring to carry out their policy of keeping the
Negro down, southerners too often carefully plan to humiliate the
progressive and intelligent blacks and in some cases form mobs to drive
them out, as they are bad examples for that class of Negroes whom they
desire to keep as menials.[22]
There are also the migrating educated Negroes. They have studied history,
law and economics and well understand what it is to get the rights
guaranteed them by the constitution. The more they know the more
discontented they become.
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