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African Americans in WWII

1940 - 1950: African Americans moved from the South in record numbers during WWII. 

A desperate need for factory labor to build the war machine needed to win World War II led to a huge migration of blacks from poverty in the agricultural South to much greater affluence in the industrial Midwest and West. This migration also changed American politics. Blacks left the Jim Crow South. In their new states, they could vote. This laid some of the seeds of the Civil Rights Movement a decade later.

Related Links:

Program Segment 8

Interviews:
Baker
Gregory
Kennedy
Brinkley
Kessler-Harris

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PBS Program | Trends of the Century | Viewer's Voices | Interactivity | Teacher's Guide