The Slave Trade Today

Every month over one hundred girls, many underage, travel from the Deep South to Massachusetts in search of work. Boston employment agencies sponsor the trips and procure jobs for the girls. Many of these agencies also gather large profits by exploiting the naivete and confusion of their young clients.

Last week, the NAACP went before the Mercantile Affairs Committee of the Massachusetts House with well-documented evidence on what amounts to an up-dated slave trade. Working with Southern affiliates, Boston agencies advertise in Dixie newspapers, offering feminine domestic jobs at $35 to $60 a week. Upon arriving in the North, the girls find their work much heavier, and their salary much lower, than promised. Suddenly they owe the agency a large, mysterious, unitemized "fee." If work is not immediately available, the agency holds their luggage and threatens them with "the law." Many girls spend months working themselves out of an illegal debt; others escape involuntary servitude by fleeing to the South.

The NAACP is urging the passage of House Bill No. 2662, which would firmly regulate the state's employment agencies. The bill ensures accurate advertising by the agencies and guarantees the girls proper treatment upon arrival in the Home of Abolition. It is fair to all parties involved and should be speedily passed.