Negro Migration during the War
meeting of the Confidential Exchange with a view to preparing for these new arrivals.

At the June, 1917, meeting of the Chamber of Commerce, a committee was appointed from that body to investigate housing conditions and to cooperate with other agencies in improving them. The committee met frequently through the summer with the housing committee of the Civic Club, in an endeavor to ascertain the facts bearing upon the present situation. It had before it leading colored citizens, ministers, business men and industrial workers, some of whom have lived here for years and others who have recently arrived from the South. It was discovered that there was, at that time, plenty of work and at good wages, but the universal complaint was the lack of homes suitable for proper living and the extortionate prices asked for rents. Negroes in Hartford were suffering from the cupidity of landlords. They were obliged to live in poor tenements and under unhealthful conditions because accommodations of another class were withheld from them. For such inferior accommodations they were charged outrageous rents, because selfish property owners knowing that negroes must live charged all the traffic would bear. Partial relief was obtained from the immediate need by the purchase of buildings already erected, and homes for them were later built. It appeared that for the first time in many years Hartford had a race problem on its hands.The various religious denominations among negroes were profoundly affected by the migration movement. The sudden moving of thousands of communicants from one section of the country to the other caused many churches in the South to become disorganized and in some instances to be broken up. In the North the facilities of particular denominations were inadequate to accommodate the new communicants who would worship in the church of their particular faith. In some instances, it was necessary to hold double services in order that all who wished to attend the services might be accommodated. A writer in the _Southwestern Christian Advocate_, the organ of the negro members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, said: "The movement of the negroes by the thousands from the South to the North raises a many-sided question. The missionary view is the logical view for the church, and that side of the question falls logically upon her hands for solution."

The Boards of Missions of white denominations carrying on work among negroes made studies of the migration movement. Dr. Gilbert N. Brink, Secretary for Education of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, issued a pamphlet on "Negro Migration, What does it Mean?" "The Invasion from Dixie" was the title of a circular 
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