Roots of the Civil Rights Movement

The experience of Blacks during the Second World War. Large numbers of jobs previously closed to Black workers were suddenly available. Black migration to the North reached an unprecedented scale. Until the eve of the First World War, 90 percent of Blacks lived in the South. As late as 1940, 77 percent of all Blacks resided in the former slave states—compared to 27 percent of whites.^{<style=”font-size=1″>1</style=”font-size=1″>}

By 1950, the figure had declined to 68 percent, a trend that would continue into the 1960s.^{<style=”font-size=1″>2</style=”font-size=1″>} In 1910, 57 percent of all Black male workers and 52 percent of all Black female workers were farmers. Eight percent of men and 42 percent of women were employed as domestics or personal servants. Only one-sixth of the Black population worked in manufacturing or industry. By 1940, 28 percent of Black workers were service workers, and farm employment had dropped to 32 percent. By 1960, 38 percent of Blacks were industrial workers, 32 percent service workers, and only 8 percent of all Blacks employed worked on farms.^{<style=”font-size=1″>3</style=”font-size=1″>} The urbanization of the Black population transformed its character—and as we will explore in this chapter, heightened the confidence of Blacks in both the North and the South to challenge racism.

By 1946, Black employment in manufacturing had increased 135 percent over its 1940 proportion, and under the auspices of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), Black workers joined industrial unions by the tens of thousands.