Southern whites tried multiple tactics to get Blacks to stay. They cut the wages of Black workers so they couldn’t afford transportation north. They refused to cash paychecks for Black workers if they had a suspicion that the money would be used to finance travel north. Lawmakers made the recruitment of Black workers to the North illegal and started jailing recruiters who showed up in Southern cities. They printed horror stories of Black Northern life in local papers. They refused to sell bus and train tickets to Black travelers. They arrested Black people at bus stations on vagrancy charges.
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