Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, General Research and Reference Division

Robert Elliott Flickinger, The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy (Pittsburgh, Pa.: Under the auspices of the Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen, 1914)

Letters from the North were often read in churches on Sunday mornings. For many, the Great Migration was like a religious revival or a flight out of Egypt. Some churches formed migration clubs to exchange information and facilitate passage north. Churches sent letters to northern industries, asking for assistance to move and work. One such letter was sent from Mobile, Alabama, on April 21, 1917:

Dear Sirs: We have a club of 108 good men wants work we are willing to go north or west but we are not able to pay rail road fare now if you can help us get work and get to it please answer at once. Hope to hear from you.