The migrants were moved both by forces within the South which
pushed them out and by those within the North which pulled them
in. On one hand, continuing violence and segregation drove many to
leave their homes. When the boll weevil spread across the Southern
states like a plague, it wiped out many poor farmers, and it drove
them to seek other means of livelihood elsewhere. On the other
hand, the war had interrupted the flow of immigrants from Europe
into the Northern industrial centers, and at the same time it
created the need for even more unskilled labor in the factories.
After the war, the restrictive immigration laws which were passed
kept the flow of European immigration low, and Northern industry
continued to draw labor from the Southern rural pockets of poverty.
Between 1910 and 1920, some 330,000 Afro-Americans moved from
the South into the North and West. By 1940, the number of those
who had left the South since 1910 had soared to 1,750,000.
Between 1940 and 1950, there were another 1,597,000, and between
1950 and 1960, there were 1,457,000 more who left the South.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293