Factors Affecting The United States

They faced challenges with the migration and between 1915-1916 they faced even more challenges when their crops where attacked by boll weevil which ultimately ruined their crops. This caused economic conditions to worsen for them and then another misfortune was the fact that they were stripped of their rights to vote. Black southerners moving to the North caused more distress for them trying to make a living. While the economic grew, it also caused problems for the Europeans as well which caused labor to become unavailable because of the elimination cheap labor to be replaced with black southerners to fill positions. African Americans started to feel like they were making

What attracted immigrants, especially the later groups, to the United States? How did native-born Americans and earlier immigrants react? Those seeking new life in America were ready to leave their poverted life behind, in hopes to find fulfillment through America's financial, social, and educational opportunities . Immigrants who came to dominate by the turn of the century, in comparison to those earlier on, were mostly unskilled, uneducated, and little to no capital to buy farmland.

The South was a complete mess after the Civil War. The early part of the 20th century brought many changes for African Americans. There was a difficult challenge of helping newly free African American slaves assimilate among their white counterparts. They suffered from crop failures, economic hardships, and the early failures of Reconstruction in the south. So as result many Southern African Americans migrated to northern cities in search of employment and a chance at a better life. However, Southern African Americans migrating to northern cities quickly discovered that they were not able to enjoy the same social and economic mobility experienced by their European immigrant counterparts arriving around the same time. There were many

During the early 1900’s, Louisville attempted to segregate by creating regulations that kept Caucasian people from moving into a neighborhood where most of the minority races were already living and visa versa. They did not want for the races to mix so they created these laws which were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court trial “Buchanan v. Warley”(Broken Sidewalk). This also occurred in other cities but none were as prominent as the commotion created by Louisville. Because of the ruling of the Supreme Court, zonings were created where race was not able to be a reason for granting or denying the right to a house. There were still some places that were denying the sale of houses to blacks because they were in a “restricted housing covenant”. These were ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1948, however, they still affected the lives and home sales of these houses that were considered “restricted”. Despite all these efforts, the neighborhoods were still heavily segregated socially and economically. People would only live with others of their same socioeconomic class which president Nixon saw as a big problem. He decided to take action in 1968 when he appointed George Romney the head of Housing and Urban development. George Romney was the governor for Michigan, and he strongly endorsed open housing and the integration of neighborhoods. Romney helped change the demographic of housing across the entire United

During the mid-20th century there was much racial discrimination, specifically in home ownership. During this period there was mass immigration of Southern blacks to the north. In Lawndale Chicago, there was adverse reactions to this. As the

The growth of the African-American population in the Pacific Northwest (including Washington State, Idaho and Oregon) expanded by 309 percent, between 1940-1950. Many simply came for employment, as WWII contract work gave African-Americans the ability to find steady work in shipyards, defense production opportunities, federal employee positions, Boeing Airplane Company (need for Machinists) and many other employment opportunities for the growing Northwest cities. With the presence of the military, many African-Americans were assigned to the local military bases, moving them and their families westward, to a region with great opportunities.

On the home front, the U.S. government desperately needed workers to fill newly created defense jobs and factory positions left open by soldiers who had left to fight. More than two million African Americans went to work for defense plants, and another two million joined the federal civil service. As these new opportunities drew more and more African Americans into cities, they opened the way for economic mobility.

Around 1914 to 1920, over 500,000 African Americans had gathered their belongings and embarked on a journey to the North. World War I and the economic boom that accompanied it created the conditions that made the entrance of black migrants into northern industries possible. However, until then European immigrants had been arriving at an annual rate that surpassed the North’s total black population, thus providing employers with

A large influx of colored people created many problems. First, there was a major problem in the availability in housing, of which was responded to with racism. This is the root for the hatred between the black and white communities. There wasn’t enough housing in the “black belt” community, so Negroes began to spill into white neighborhoods. The very existence of a colored person in a neighborhood would lower the property values. When a house was sold to a colored person, the rent for the house would be higher than the previous, white owner’s rent. Real Estate companies believed that “it is a matter of common knowledge that house after house…whether under white or black agents, comes to the Negro at an increased rental” (Sandburg 46). They sold housing despite the fact that “the Negro in Chicago, paid a lower wage than the white workman” (47), and that black people would have

Before WWI, most black people had been dehumanized, effectively stripping them of the feeling to vote and were bereft from protection from police. “I am in the darkness of the south and I am trying my best to get out,” an inspirational migrant from Alabama wrote to the Chicago Defender. New opportunities for the urban part of the North blos-somed when the war reared its ugly head. The American industrial economy grew vigorously, and as existing European immigrants and white women were unable to meet demand, northern businesses leaned to black southerners to fill their place. When the word of higher wages and ameliorated working conditions spread around, northern businesses were met with positive feed-back as black men, in significant numbers came flocking, thus sprouting a social movement out of urban misery. The War, unknowingly, set the par for work for African Americans and the North became a liberating meadow for all those who sought equality and wanted to avoid the ‘racist menace’.

1. The American city was changed drastically in the first half of the 20th century with the beginnings of the industrial revolution and the ongoing flow of foreigners into an already crowded United States.

The Great Migration seemed to begin again after a short period of time during the Great Depression. The price of crops fell dramatically during the Great Depression, causing African Americans to leave the South, mostly to the western United States this time, though some still traveled to northern cities. They moved to western cities, particularly in California, for more economic opportunity since the need for farmers had declined thanks to government plans to help stop the Great Depression. Jim Crow Laws were still enforced in the South and African Americans continued to leave to find better race relations. “Although lynching had greatly diminished by 1935 - there were eighteen lynchings that year - violence was still prevalent in the South. People were threatened, beaten, fired from their jobs, and publicly humiliated.” African Americans had to flee from the South and from the violence that was attributed to the region. Another reason for this second Great Migration was because of World War II. Many industries would switch to making wartime goods which called for extra labor. Men would go off to fight, and women and African Americans would be able to fill the job left behind. Family members and newspapers also added to the new movement. Letters would be sent back to families still in the South and explain how much better it was and the economic opportunity. Some newspapers would urge African Americans to move from the South for better relations in regards to race, and for

Similar to The Great Migration, The Second Great Migration was the movement of more than five million African Americans from the South to the North, Midwest and West from 1941 to 1970. Between 1930 and 1950, the number of Southern tenant farmers was cut roughly in half, while the number of tractors tripled from 1940 to 1950 (“Second Great Migration: Historical Overview”). Adding to the troubles, many planters started to use the mechanized cotton picker. The need for laborers at harvest time was therefore drastically decreased. Besides a terrible economic situation, Southerners, as they had done during the Great Migration, were also fleeing Jim Crow. Also, with little hope of glow in the justice system, African Americans were at the crime of abusive employers, landlords, and almost anyone bent on depriving them of their rights (“Second Great Migration”). Once World War II came about and the United States became engaged in a two-front war against Japan and Germany, production shifted into higher gear. In addition to the usual needs for armaments, clothing, food, and training facilities, the naval war with Japan stimulated increased shipbuilding and the making of naval material, much of it directed to and through Pacific coast ports.

An outburst in growth of America’s big city population, places of 100,000 people or more jumped from about 6 million to 14 million between 1880 and 1900, cities had become a world of newcomers (551). America evolved into a land of factories, corporate enterprise, and industrial worker and, the surge in immigration supplied their workers. In the latter half of the 19th century, continued industrialization and urbanization sparked an increasing demand for a larger and cheaper labor force. The country's transformation from a rural agricultural society into an urban industrial nation attracted immigrants worldwide. As free land and free labor disappeared and as capitalists dominated the economy, dramatic social, political, and economic

It was a way to constraint African Americans to areas that were far away from those with status, class, and power. Segregation led to discrimination in economic opportunities, housing, and education. The black culture has suffered from the barriers that were placed through segregation. However, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Housing Act of 1968 tried to limit some of the discrimination associated with segregation. It was discovered that even a “rising economic status had little or no effect on the level of segregation that blacks experience” (Massey and Denton 87). The authors imply that “black segregation would remain a universal high” (Massey and Denton 88). The problem with the continuing causes in Segregation is that even though the Fair Housing act was placed, many realtors still discriminate against blacks “through a series of ruses, lies, and deceptions, makes it hard for them to learn about, inspect, rent, or purchase homes in white neighborhoods” (Massey and Denton 97). Segregation and discrimination have a cumulative effect over time. Massey and Denton argued that the “act of discrimination may be small and subtle, together they have a powerful cumulative effect in lowering the probability of black entry into white neighborhood” (98). William Julius Wilson had