Two economic factors might have been expected to produce rapid African American economic progress in the postwar era: (1) the increase in the number of years of schooling and (2) the geographic redistribution of the African American labor force. It may be difficult for today’s college students, aware of the overcrowding and underfunding of predominantly African American schools, to believe that much progress has been made.
Schooling, and 40 percent had less than five years of schooling. As shown in Table 29.7, the gap with white Americans narrowed considerably during the postwar period. In 1940, only 7 percent of African American men over 25 years old had completed high school compared with 24 percent of white men. By 2000, 79 percent of African American men were high school graduates, compared with 88 percent of white men. Similar improvements were recorded for African American women. The gap in the quality of education, although more difficult to measure, also narrowed substantially.
African Americans also benefited from the migration of African Americans from the low-wage South to other regions of the country where wages were higher. In 1940, 75 percent of African American men lived in the South; by 1980, that figure had fallen to 53 percent.
Despite these trends, however, gains were slow and halting because of discrimination. In 1947, one of the most famous milestones in the fight against discrimination occurred when Jackie Robinson broke the color line in major league baseball. This was important not only for African Americans who would earn their living in professional sports in the postwar period but also for the effect it would have on white stereotypes about the abilities of African Americans. One of the main goals of the civil rights movement was the passage of fair employment laws. These laws, passed after World War II by a number of states, set up commissions that could issue cease-and-desist orders against firms that discriminated. By the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 98 percent of African Americans outside the South were covered by these laws. Research by William Collins (2003) shows that these laws had some success in improving the wages and working conditions of African American women but little success in improving the wages and working conditions of African American men. In 1954 the Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka that segregated schools were unconstitutional. This decision would have far-reaching consequences for U. S. education. Although many school districts then claimed that they were providing a separate but equal education for African Americans (a formula ordered by the Supreme Court in Plessy v. Fergusson in 1896), this was not actually the case. As Robert Margo (1982, 1986, 1990) documented, African American schools were systematically underfunded, and African Americans entered the labor force with a severe handicap. Brown v. Board ofEducation did not bring about change overnight. Many school districts dragged their feet, and not until the late 1960s, when courts began to order busing to achieve racial integration, was significant progress made in many areas.
Other visible signs of discrimination, such as segregated transportation, were also crumbling as a result of the civil rights movement. The high point of the movement was the march on Washington in August 1963, where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his memorable “I Have a Dream” speech. Less than a year later, the Civil Rights Act was passed, which, among other things made it illegal to discriminate in employment. This law and the federal enforcement efforts that followed seem to have had a positive effect in breaking down discriminatory barriers, especially in the South. See New View 29.1 for some dramatic evidence.
The civil rights movement did not depend solely on federal legislative and judicial actions to bring about change. As Gavin Wright explained in his thoughtful book, Old South, New South (1986), southern political and business leaders were trying to attract new businesses to the South. They realized that a quick resolution of civil rights turmoil was necessary if they were to continue to compete successfully for outside capital. In 1970, the president of Allis-Chalmers Corporation visited Jackson, Mississippi, and expressed doubts about locating a plant there because of the violent ongoing confrontation between African American students at Jackson State University and local police. As a result, the deadlock over school integration, then seven years old, was broken, and Allis-Chalmers announced construction plans.
After the 1960s, however, progress toward equality slowed. One reason is that when the fight against discrimination moved from the South, where the targets were explicit laws, to the North, where the targets were implicit social norms, progress based on legal proceedings proved more difficult to achieve. In addition, as William Julius Wilson (1987, 2009), the loss of manufacturing jobs in older northern cities hit the African American community, which had been drawn to those cities by those jobs, especially hard. Declining racial discrimination actually worked against the black urban poor in some cases because it produced a movement of middle class African Americans to the suburbs further isolating the black urban poor.
Evidence. Notice that the share of African Americans (who were confined to the most menial jobs) was low and stable until 1965 when it finally began to rise. To some extent, employers may have welcomed federal pressure. For example, employers in South Carolina who wanted to take advantage of relatively cheap African American labor could use the threat of federal sanctions as an excuse for breaking with established racial norms.
MEASURING THE IMPACT OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT
As John H. Donohue III and James Heckman (1991) show, federal pressure to end discrimination was directed at the South, where social norms, backed by state and local legislation, limited employment of African Americans. This pressure was successful. The graph below, showing employment in the South Carolina textile industry, is a dramatic piece of
Source: Donohue and Heckman 1991, 1615.
World History
