Abiding Courage African American: Migrant Women and the East Bay Community
by Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo
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I tend to highlight these types of books because they provide a wealth of information on the Western migration. Much of Black historical literature tend to dwell on the Northeastern migration or slavery.
Excerpt from book:
Between 1940 and 1945, thousands of African Americans migrated from the South to the East Bay Area in search of social and economic mobility associated with the region’s expanding defense industry and reputation for greater racial tolerance. Prior to World War II, the black
population in the East Bay was small and highly insular. But the wartime economic boom, fueled by federal investment in shipbuilding, changed this whole demographic landscape. African Americans from the South who heard about defense jobs from labor recruiters, from railroad work ers, at employment bureaus, from newspapers and, most important, by word of mouth joined thousands of white workers in a westward exodus. As a consequence, the East Bay’s black population grew significantly–by up to fivefold in many communities across the bay from San Francisco. In Richmond, for example, the African American population grew from 2 70 in 1940 to 10,000 in 1945. Similarly, Oakland’s black population grew from 8,462 to over 37, 000 during the same period. Of the African AmeriÂcans who joined the migration to the East Bay, most came from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma, and roughly half were women.
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