
Definition Essays on
RacismBy
the 1930s a few judicial decisions began to nibble at
the edifice of racial segregation, and both
the Great Depression and
the New Deal policies exercised a certain leveling effect between poor whites and poor Negroes. Migration outside
the South continued, if only in search of nondiscriminatory relief. However, it took World War II to unleash forces powerful enough to undermine
the racial status quo. Negro migration to
the large industrial centers of
the North,
the Great Lakes, and as far as
the West Coast greatly accelerated during
the war and continued
thereafter. By 1960 only 61 per cent of Negroes were living in
the South and only 21 per cent of
the sou
thern population were Negro. More servicemen than ever before fought and lived abroad, albeit in a Jim Crow army, and came in contact with societies in which racial bigotry did not exist.
The strong incentive not to waste manpower motivated
the establishment of Fair Employment Practices Commissions and opened up new occupational opportunities for Negroes.
Racism, of course, was far from dead, as shown by
the wartime internment of United States citizens of Japanese descent condoned by Franklin D. Roosevelt.