Page:The American Negro by Allen, James S..djvu/3

THE AMERICAN NEGRO By jf^S^^XLEN hog ," “CORAL GABLES, FLA. . . . ‘Hell, they were only niggers/ was the only excuse given for the white guards running away from 15 Negro prisoners shackled in a burning prison van with dynamite. “One was killed, four are expected to die, several were maimed for life. “The prisoners, all of whom were serving terms of less than one year, were herded into the prison van at the end of their 10 -hour day. With them were their guards, carelessly smoking, and a large amount of dynamite. A spark from a cigarette set fire to the truck and ignited the dynamite. “The guards dropped their guns and ran, leaving the prisoners shackled in the blazing truck to burn to death. Finally one of them had the courage to go back to the truck and unsnap the lock, allowing the convicts to pour out. “What was once sound flesh and blood was now burned to the color of a dingy ash. One of them is dead, four will die.” {Federated Press news item, April 8, 1031.) The Negro Population Today there are about 12,000,000 Negroes in the United States, of whom approximately 9,500,000 are in the South where the oppression and persecution directed against them are the sharp- est. In 1920 about three-quarters of the colored population in the South was rural. In the North the Negro is principally located in the industrial cities and towns, with an insignificant number rural — about 250,000. The dominant trend, especially since the war, for the Negro as well as the white has been from the farms to the cities. The de- mand for labor in the war industries during the World War and the period of inflation after that, coupled with the unbearable feudal conditions of the southern countryside and the chronic farm crisis in the cotton and tobacco country, led to a great cityward migration. Between 1920 and 1930 over 1,000,000 Ne- groes sought a “better life” in the cities. It is estimated that 3