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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture - 4. Southern Trends during the ’Thirties
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Chapter 13. Seeking Jobs Outside Agriculture 289
so the industrial depression was a serious matter in the South, particularly
for Negroes.®
Since Negroes, during the ’thirties, were driven out of agriculture at a
more rapid rate than were the white farm workers in the South,** there
is nothing surprising in the fact that the large and middle-sized cities in the
South showed a greater increase of the Negro than of the white popula-
tion (Table 2). Negro farm workers, who had been forced out of employ-
ment in rural areas, sooner or later had to go to the cities, which offered
varied, even if scarce, employment opportunities. A large labor market
always seems to offer a chance; in a plantation area where farm workers
are dismissed there is no hope left. Also there were more liberal relief
standards in the cities than in rural areas.
The more rapid increase of the Negro than the white urban popula-
tion in the South during the ’thirties meant that an earlier trend had been
broken. During previous decades, when migratory outlets for Negroes in the
North had been more ample, there had been a definite decline in the
proportion of Negroes In the urban South.^^ In spite of this changing popu-
lation trend, however, Negroes continued to lose in importance as an ele-
ment in Southern urban labor. While the white male ‘
4abor force”
including unemployed as well as employed workers—increased at about the
same rate as the white population, the Negro labor force did not expand
even as much as the number of employed white workers. Thus, although
the proportion of Negroes in the population showed an increase in the
urban South, there was a decline in the percentage of Negro workers
in the total male labor force. Undoubtedly the proportion of unemployed
among Negro workers in the South increased more than that among white
workers during the Great Depression, even if there are no reliable statistics
available to prove it.^^
The general increase in unemployment during the ’thirties made white
workers try even more to ^^drive the Negroes out.” That this is one of the
main factors behind the continued decline in the proportion of Negro
workers in nonagricultural pursuits seems even more probable when we
study the data for specific industries in Table 3. To be sure, we have to be
cautious in interpreting these figures, for certain technical improvements
introduced in the 1940 Census make it difficult to trace the development
during the previous decade.® Yet we can scarcely be mistaken in the observa-
tion that the relative position of the Negro in Southern industry has
deteriorated further during the ’thirties.
The textile industry continued to grow tremendously,** but only 26,000
out of its 635,000 Southern workers in 1940 were Negroes. Food manu-
• Sec the unemployment rates by race presented in Table 6 of this chapter.
’*Sce Chapter 12.
• See the footnotes to Table 3.
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