Chapter 2: Derailing the Great Migration
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Discussion questions during the session:
  1. For the Southern elites, who used laws and policy to try and stop the Great Migration, did they truly believe in black inability or was that just the lie they had to tell themselves?
  2. If “The Defender” had been more honest about conditions in the North, would as many people have left? Should they have been more explicit about conditions in the North?
  3. White elites used a number of scapegoats for why the newly freed slaves were leaving the South: first the recruiters; then the press; then the railroad, which they were willing to sabotage even if it meant hurting the war effort. Were you surprised at what they were willing to do in an attempt to keep black people in place? The author notes on page 55 that it was "more than just white fears of black competition for jobs [that] ignited rampant violence against African Americans." Was that competition real or just perceived?
  4. After the war, why did the South continue to rely on cheap/artificially depressed African American labor as the foundation of the economy? Admittedly, this question is broad and the answer could probably fill a book of its own. The reason I ask is that it seems to me that the search/need for cheap labor underpins a lot of what's wrong with most economic systems. For example, all the talk now about factories moving overseas is basically about companies finding cheaper labor in other countries. Economies are continually held hostage to the need for cheap labor. Maybe the question should actually say something like: How did the Southern economy's dependence on African American laborers contribute to the extreme tactics used to keep them in the South?
  5. Black leaders from Booker T. Washington to Bill Cosby have made the case that African Americans must prove themselves worthy of rights rather than expect to be considered intrinsically worthy. How have these different points of view shaped and informed civil rights struggles from the Great Migration to Black Lives Matter?