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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - VII. Social Inequality - 28. The Basis of Social Inequality - 8. Attitudes among Different Classes of Whites in the South - 9. Social Segregation and Discrimination in the North
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Chapter 28. The Basis of Social Inequality 59$
a common organization has materialized. Aggression has been redirected
and a ’certain amount of labor solidarity has taken the place of white
solidarity. The labor movement is, however, still in its infancy in the
South. The existing segregation in industrial work will, further, have the
effect that, in many industries, trade unions will be white and will actually
become an additional barrier against the intrusion of Negro labor, which
will certainly not tend to diminish the urge for social discrimination but
rather strengthen it. In the fields where there is actual competition for
jobs, racial friction will remain one of the principal hindrances to successful
unionization, and the odds are that it will often become successful only
by eliminating the Negroes.® Negro labor will, however, hardly be driven
out entirely from Southern industry. As we have shown, there will prob-
ably be an increasing pressure for jobs froro the side of Negroes driven
out of agriculture. If Negroes also become organized and if the collabora-
tion between different unions increases, this might eventually prepare the
ground for a growing labor class solidarity. There are great uncertainties
involved in this problem and much will depend upon the educational
forces in the South and the ideological trend in the whole nation.
9. Social Segregation and Discrimination in the North
At the outbreak of the Civil War, most Northern states were nearly as
far removed in time from actual slavery in their own realms as the South-
ern states are now. Their Negro populations were comparatively small in
numbers. But slavery was a living institution within the nation. Though
conditions were rather different in different Northern states, the general
statement can be made that wherever Negroes lived in significant numbers
they met considerable social segregation and discrimination. The Abolition-
ist propaganda and the gradual definition of emancipation as one of the
main goals of the War undoubtedly tended to raise the status of Negroes
somewhat. Still, one of the difficulties congressional leaders had in passing
the Reconstruction legislation was the resistance in some Northern states
where people found that they would have to change not only their behav-
ior but also their laws in order to comply with the new statutes.®®
In the social field—as in breadwinning, but not as in politics and justice
—the North has kept much segregation and discrimination. In some respects,
the social bars were raised considerably on account of the mass immigration
of poor and ignorant Negroes during and immediately after the First
World War. In the latter part of the ^twenties this movement was perhaps
turned into a slight tendency in the opposite direction, namely, an appre-
ciation of ^^The New Negro.”** After a new wave of unpopularity during
the first years of the depression, there seems again to have been a slow but
* See Chapter 1 8, Sections 3 and 4.
**See Chapter 35, Section 8.
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