(Current Population Reports P23, October 1967); see
also Charles S. Johnson, "The Negro Minority,"
_Annals of the Academy of Political Science_ 223
(September 1942):10-16.]

This mass migration, especially to cities outside the south, was of
profound importance to the future of American race relations. It meant
first that the black masses were separating themselves from the
archaic social patterns that had ruled their lives for generations.
Despite virulent discrimination and prejudice in northern and western
cities, Negroes could vote freely and enjoy some protection of the law
and law-enforcement machinery. They were free of the burden of Jim
Crow. Along with white citizens they were given better schooling, a
major factor in improving status. The mass migration also meant that
this part of America's peasantry was rapidly joining America's
proletariat. The wartime shortage of workers, coupled with the efforts
of the Fair Employment Practices Committee and other government
agencies, opened up thousands of jobs previously denied black
Americans. The number of skilled craftsmen, foremen, and semiskilled
workers among black Americans rose from 500,000 to over 1,000,000
during the war, while the number of Negroes working for the federal
government increased from 60,000 to 200,000.[5-3]

[Footnote 5-3: Selective Service System, _Special
Groups_, vol. I, pp. 177-78; see also Robert C.
Weaver, "Negro Labor Since 1929," _The Journal of
Negro History_ 35 (January 1950):20-38.]

Though much of the increase in black employment was the result of
temporarily expanded wartime industries, black workers gained valuable
training and experience that enabled them to compete more effectively
for postwar jobs. Employment in unionized industries strengthened
their position in the postwar labor movement. The severity of
inevitable postwar cuts in black employment was mitigated by continued
prosperity and the sustained growth of American industry. Postwar
industrial development created thousands of new upper-level jobs,
allowing many black workers to continue their economic advance without
replacing white workers and without the attendant development of
racial tensions.

The armed forces played their part in this change. Along with better
food, pay, and living conditions provided by the services, many