by the thousands," or "Man, colored folks are leaving in droves for
the North." There are cases of men who left their fields half
plowed and journeyed to the city and thence to the North. In other
communities, the beginning would be a timid dribble to the larger
cities or directly to the North.

The state of mind of the community under the influence of the first
effects of the "fever" is illustrated in authenticated accounts of
persons who witnessed the exodus from different cities:    
The most interesting thing is how these people left. They were
selling out everything they had or in a manner giving it away;
selling their homes, mules, horses, cows, and everything about
them but their trunks. All around in the country, people who
were so old they could not very well get about were leaving.
Some left with six to eight very small children and babies
half clothed, no shoes on their feet, hungry, not anything to
eat and not even a cent over their train fare. Some would go
to the station and wait there three or four days for an agent
who was carrying them on passes. Others of this city would
go in clubs of fifty and a hundred at a time in order to get
reduced rates. They usually left on Wednesday and Saturday
nights. One Wednesday night I went to the station to see
a friend of mine who was leaving. I could not get in the
station, there were so many people turning like bees in a
hive. Officers would go up and down the tracks trying to keep
the people back. One old lady and man had gotten on the train.
They were patting their feet and singing and a man standing
nearby asked, "Uncle, where are you going?" The old man
replied, "Well, son, I'm gwine to the promised land."

"When the laboring man got paid off," said a Jackson, Mississippi,
man, "he bought himself a suit of overalls and a paper valise and
disappeared." Even the young married women refused to wait any longer
than the time required to save railroad fare. It's strange that when
a negro got a notion to leave and he could not sell or give away,
he simply locked up his house and left the key with his neighbor.
Families with $1,000 worth of furniture have been known to sell it for
$150. A negro in Jackson was buying a $1,000 house, on which he had
paid $700. When the "fever" struck the town, he sold it for $100 and
left.

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