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914

(1944) [MARC] Author: Gunnar Myrdal
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Note: Gunnar Myrdal died in 1987, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.

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914 An American Dilemma
a nation-wide reading public among the Negro intellectuals and was a
force behind the Niagara movement.® In 1905, Robert S. Abbott started
his Chicago Defender^ which was destined to revolutionize Negro journal-
ism. The foundation of the N.A.A.C.P. in 1909 and the publishing of The
Crisis in 1910 gave further impulse to racial radicalism in the press.
But it was the First World War that provided the tide of protest upon
which the press rose in importance and militancy. It was largely the Negro
newspapers that made the Negroes fully conscious of the inconsistency
between America’s war aims to ^^make the world safe for democracy” and
her treatment of this minority at home. It was also the Negro press that
made the northward migration into a Negro protest movement.**
There was a more immediate personal interest in the contents of the
press. Negroes wanted to read about employment possibilities and the
stream of migration; about what happened to the 400,000 drafted Negro
men and the 200,000 Negro soldiers in France. As riots increased in
number and bloodiness, they wanted to read about them. The government
believed that the Negro press was dangerous for morale during the War,
and had to call a conference of Negro editors and other Negro leaders.
It was staged as an important move and provided headlines in the Negro
press. ^‘With ^copy’ like this to work on, every paper could exploit the war,
and could benefit from it if its publisher was capable or willing to make
the most of the circumstances.”^®
The Negro, due to the War and to the Great Migration, had moved out
of the isolated Negro community. In some places in the South attempts
were made to keep out Negro newspapers from the North.^® This, again,
provided stories and grievances and gave additional emotional value to the
Northern Negro newspaper in the eyes of Southern Negroes. The circula-
tion of the Negro press swelled.
After the War there were other things to keep up this interest in Negro
newspapers: the continued wave of lynchings and riots, the Garvey move-
ment, the friendliness on the part of the Communists and other radical
groups emerging during the ’twenties, the continuing migration and the
problems that accompanied it. During the ’thirties Negro welfare was
deeply involved in most government policies, and there was a new type of
discrimination. The shift of the Negro vote from the Republican party to
the New Deal Democrats was a dramatic move of Northern Negroes.
The Second World War again increased unrest, suspicion, and dissatis-
faction, which it is the opportunity of the press to stir up and organize.
Again the inconsistency between expressed war aims and domestic policy
becomes glaring. Again there is discrimination in the Army, Navy, and
Air Force, and in the war industries. Again there are Negro heroes, unrec-
* See Chapter 35, Section 4.
® See Chapters 8 and 35.

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