Majority white support for racial job equality emerged only after the 1940s

Evidence

At the same time, there was initially little reason for northern whites to believe that adherence to these principles would require any changes in their own position in society or that of their children. But as the issues shifted from largely southern problems of stateimposed segregation and voting hindrances, to economic and other redistributive issues of national scope (e.g., school busing, affirmative action, and the economic decline of urban areas), many whites no doubt came to sense a greater threat to their position in life. This sense of threat was probably amplified by the use of political slogans like Black Power (Aberbach & Walker, 1970) and the urban unrest of the late 1960s (Ashmore & Del Boca, 1976). Group conflict and ideological processes have thus contributed to the gap between support for racial principles and support for full implementation of such principles, that is, to the development of an ideology of bounded racial change. — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3387 (#complicates, via linked claim)

The Great Depression hit the South and Black America particularly hard. “No jobs for niggers until every white man has a job,” became the Deep South’s slogan. In the North, Black migrants and natives were often found standing on “slave markets,” as these street corners were called in northern cities. White employers would come by and choose the cheapest day laborers. Sexual and fiscal exploitation were rampant. — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 858 (#complicates, via linked claim)

A journalist observing the 1869 convention of the NLU wrote: “When a native Mississippian and an ex-confederate officer, in addressing a convention, refers to a colored delegate who has preceded him as ‘the gentleman from Georgia’ … when an ardent and Democratic partisan (from New York at that) declares with a rich Irish brogue that he asks for himself no privilege as a mechanic or as a citizen that he is not willing to concede to every other man, white or black … then one may indeed be warranted in asserting that time works curious charges.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2206 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: US non-white populations remained concentrated in the working class until after WWII — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 322; White elites supported only image-serving racial moderation to protect their business interests — Kevin M. Kruse, White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of…, 89; White support for racial equality rose while Allport-style prejudice supposedly eroded — , Rudman, Laurie A - On the Nature of…, 658 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Whites supported racial equality only while it cost them nothing personally #complicates (0.78) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 3387
• Some postwar white labor gatherings showed genuine interracial egalitarianism #complicates (0.72) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 2206
• Great Depression labor scarcity made white workers demand Black exclusion from jobs #complicates (0.72) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 858