Note (return) — Chapter VI · The Draining of the Black Belt
Reading edition
From Eufaula in the eastern part of the State it was reported in September that trains leaving there on Sundays in 1916 were packed with negroes going north, that hundreds left, joining crowds from Clayton, Clio and Ozark. There seemed to be a "free ride" every Sunday and many were giving up lucrative positions there to go. The majority of these negroes, however, went from the country where they had had a disastrous experience with the crops of the year 1916 on account of the July floods.70 By October the exodus from Dallas county had reached such alarming proportions that farmers and business men were devising means to stop it.