16. Labor Crises Caused Racial Tensions To Pique
Keep in mind that while the North may not have had slaves before the Civil War and didn’t have Jim Crow laws, African Americans weren’t particularly welcome up there. But because of World War I, there was a shortage of laborers, particularly in the industrial cities up North, like New York and Pittsburgh.
Due to the war, immigration from Europe came to a standstill. To fill the factory jobs that had previously been filled by European immigrants, upwards of 500,000 African Americans migrated en masse to the North. Because racial tensions already existed in the North and Midwest, working-class whites resented the African American newcomers for taking their jobs.
