or mixed race baseball matches and pool games.Jobs were also segregated for a long time. Most Southern blacks had rural jobs (1890 85%). This meant that they had to do very strenuous work for 10-12 hrs a day on very little money. Since it was very easy for an accident to happen they had a very short career life. This meant that black families in the South and some in the North had extremely low standards of living, since they only had enough money to get by on. Many blacks, believing it would be easier to get jobs in the North moved. However the jobs in the North were heavily fought for since European immigrants were looking for work to. The racism still ever present in the whole of America meant that most of the time the immigrants got the jobs. This was to change in World War I because all jobs vacated by the men fighting had to be filled somehow. This was a huge opportunity for the black community because it meant that they were given the opportunity to prove themselves able to perform many different types of jobs. The impact this had on the community wasnt so great as to change the minds of many people. It was in World War II that black citizens were given the chance to work in industries they had never been in before. It was the threat of protest, which was a major influence on the Fair Employment Practice Committee (FEPC) being established by president Roosevelt. This committee was to enforce fair employment. This didnt work but did give confidence to the civil rights organisations that now believed the government was behind them again. World War II helped the civil rights movement greatly. This was because although segregation was still in place in the armed forces until 1948, one-eighth of the US army comprised of black Americans. Even though a large number of these were put into non-combat roles the ones who fought on the front line gained the respect of many other white soldiers for their patriotism. During ...
