As a result of such a situation, there arose, first, the
Black Belt; and, second, the Migration to Town. The Black
Belt was not, as many assumed, a movement toward fields of
labor under more genial climatic conditions; it was primarily
a huddling for self-protection,--a massing of the black popu-
lation for mutual defence in order to secure the peace and
tranquillity necessary to economic advance. This movement
took place between Emancipation and 1880, and only par-
tially accomplished the desired results. The rush to town
since 1880 is the counter-movement of men disappointed in
the economic opportunities of the Black Belt.
In Dougherty County, Georgia, one can see easily the
results of this experiment in huddling for protection. Only ten
per cent of the adult population was born in the county, and
yet the blacks outnumber the whites four or five to one. There
is undoubtedly a security to the blacks in their very numbers,--a
personal freedom from arbitrary treatment, which makes hun-
dreds of laborers cling to Dougherty in spite of low wages
and economic distress. But a change is coming, and slowly
but surely even here the agricultural laborers are drifting to
town and leaving the broad acres behind.
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