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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 17. The Mechanics of Economic Discrimination as a Practical Problem - 3. Migration Policy
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Chapter 17. A Practical Problem 387
Negroes seem to get along fairly well and are not much discriminated
against, at least as far as employment on the working class level is con-
cerned. It is true that these scattered Negro populations have usually been
settled there for a long time. Their presence has become part of what is
traditional and they have enjoyed for generations the excellent educational
facilities which are ordinarily offered in such cities. They are ‘^good
Negroes”—in the Northern but not in the Southern sense—educated,
conservative, ambitious.
It is open to speculation why Negroes have been so reluctant to move
to the smaller Northern cities.® In any case, fart of a rational flanning to
find new emfloyment offortunities for Negroes must be an investigation
of the fossibilities for some fortion of the Negro labor reserve to be settled
in the smaller Northern cities where there are now few or no Negroes,
Certain general principles for such a policy—^which preferably should be
the responsibility of a public employment service qualified for and inter-
ested in positive job-finding**—seem rather obvious.
For one thing, the attempt should be made at such times and in localities
where there is a labor shortage, so that employers would be interested and
white workers would be less hurt by the new competition. It should under
no circumstances be staged as an ‘invasion.” It should be recognized that
Southern Negro migrants are usually less well suited for such a transplanta-
tion to small Northern cities than are Northern Negroes.® Only individ-
ually picked, well-educated, and, preferably, vocationally trained, young
Northern Negroes could ordinarily hope to get a permanent foothold in
such smaller communities where there is little of the protective anonymity
of the big city. The attempt should be prepared and supported by an
educational campaign, and local leaders in church, school, business, and
labor should be won over to the idea. The most should be made of the
American Creed and of the common national responsibility for the eco-
nomic catastrophe threatening the Negro people.
The task is a most difficult one. Even if fairly successful, such a policy
of planned and organized migration to the smaller Northern cities can
only have the indirect importance of easing the unemployment situation
in the big cities by drawing away part of its existing Negro labor reserve.
It will not directly touch the main problem of getting the Negro out of
the stagnating rural South.
The small Northern cities, however, cannot accommodate more than a
moderate proportion of unemployed and marginally employed Negroes
at least in a short time. Meanwhile, Southern Negroes will continue to go
to the larger Northern cities and increase their supply of Negro labor of
* Some observations on this problem were made in Chapter S.
**
See Chapter i8, Section 2.
* See Chapter a8, Section 9.
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