Industrial Expansion and Dispered Racial Conflict

Industrial Expansion and Dispered Racial Conflict

The major theme of chapter four (Industrial Expansion and Dispersed Racial Conflict) in William Julius Wilson's book entitled The Declining Significance of Race is the fact that racial migration in the U.S. was directly related to its industrial expansion. This industrial expansion included the usage of new technologies for agriculture in the south, and expanded opportunities for factory work in the north and in the western portion of the country. The primary migration involved African-Americans moving from the south to areas in the north and the west. Doing so resulted in increased racial tension, which really was a result of class conflict in the scheme of labor relations.

The author cites numerous facets of historical evidence to successfully marshal his support for this theme. The migration of African-Americans was generally attributed to a series of push and pull factors (Wilson 66) that led them away from traditional lives and agricultural labor opportunities in the South. Push factors included the fact that mechanization and increasing technology in the South, along with the organization of lower class white workers in the region, made agricultural jobs (those that were economically feasible, at least) scarce. Overt forms of Jim Crow racism, which reinforced and aided the organization of white laborers, also operated as factors to push African-Americans from their traditional roles in the Southern agricultural economy.

Pull factors included the advent of World War I, during which time many positions for industrial labor in the North and the West became accessible and even necessary for African-Americans to fill. Other pull factors included the curtailing of European immigration in the early part of the 20th century, which left many employers in the North and the West reliant upon African-Americans to fulfill unskilled labor positions. World War II was another pull factor.

The influx of African-Americans to the North and the South was met with predictable hostility on the part of whites, particularly lower class whites who were now competing with these individuals for jobs, housing, and the same social and economic resources. The author emphasizes the fact that the racial antagonism that ensued was a result of this competition (Wilson 83). Such racial antagonism was not simply confined to the realm of competition for particular resources, but also came to encompass copious amounts of violence such as the numerous race riots that plagued the country for a substantial period of the 20th century.