"Don[']t Have to Mister Every Little White Boy. . .": Black Migrants Write Home

Abstract: The experiences of the half million Africans Americans from the South who headed North between 1916 and 1921 varied widely among individuals. Four letters by southern migrants who had settled in Philadelphia, Chicago, and East Chicago, Indiana, provided some insights into the diverse experiences migrants had in the North. Resettled southerners wrote to folks back home about "the true facts of the present condition of the north." These "facts" ranged from salaries, living conditions, and recent births and deaths, to the score of the latest Chicago White Sox baseball game. The letters, which were originally published in the Journal of Negro History , also described what it feels like to be out of the South: "don[']t have to mister every little white boy comes along."

Details