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(1944) [MARC] Author: Gunnar Myrdal
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Footnotes 1231
referred to here in passing are usually taken up in greater detail in other parts of this
book.
Woodson, of. cit.y Chapter 8. Also see Ray Stannard Baker, Following the Color
Line (1908), p. no.
Some experts on the problem hold a single-cause theory of Negro migration. They
believe that migration is a result only of new economic opportunities in cities. Negroes
went North because the cities were in the North, and if the cities had been in the
South, Negroes should never have left the South in spite of its traditional prejudice
and discrimination against them. (See, for example, Donald R. Young, American
Minority Peofles [1932], pp. 46 ff; and T. J. Woofter, Jr., Races and Ethnic Groufs
in American Life [i933]> p. 113*)
The incorrectness of this theory can be judged by speculating what would happen
if the situation were to be reversed. If suddenly there should be a new development of
industry in the South which would open many new jobs of the unskilled and service
type to Negroes, at the same time as there was economic stagnation and unemployment
in the North, it is not likely that Northern Negroes would migrate South in such
numbers as Southern Negroes migrated North under comparable circumstances after
1915.
In other words, the real “causes” of migration were as numerous as the Negroes
who migrated and as complex as the entire life-experiences of these Negroes. These
real causes were not simply a series of “conditions” or “factors” impinging on the
individual, but they were complexes of factors actively interpreted, weighed, and
integrated in the conscious and unconscious minds of individuals. What the analyst
must do, however, is to resolve into elements the complex structure of the motivations
of individuals, group these elements, and determine which arc the important ones—^the
ones without which the migration would have involved significantly fewer numbers
than it did. Such important classes of elements in the motivation of the migrants are
usually termed “causes” of the migration, but they must be recognized to be causes in
only a special sense—neither inevitable in their influence nor all-inclusive as explana-
tions for the migration of all those who migrated. Unfortunately, due to the complexity
of migration and the fact that it is always an event in the past and to the poorness of
the data, the relative importance of the factors cannot be measured. The significance
assigned to them is a function of the observer’s judgment, based upon his knowledge
of the history of the migration.
The returning migrants probably mounted up to the thousands in the early days
of the depression of the 1930’s when jobs were no longer available and the relief
machinery was not yet set up. Some local Urban Leagues and certain city governments
sponsored plans to send Negroes back to the South.
Richard Sterner and Associates, The Negroes Share. Prepared for this study (1943)9
p. 40.
Unpublished estimates by StouflFer and Florant indicate that the net migration of
Negroes from the South was 317,000 between 1930 and 1940 as compared to 716,000
between 1920 and 1930. As the authors recognize, there is a considerable margin of
error in both figures. {Of. cit., [1940], p. 124.)
Two recent incidents are illustrative of this point.
I. A California law prohibiting the entry of indigents from other states was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States (No. 17, October

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