Black migrants to Cleveland left the discriminatory labor market in the South only to find a discriminatory labor market in the urban North. The Great Depression hit
Cleveland with considerable force, leaving as many as 100,000 unemployed by early 1931.49 By the end of the Depression decade, black people who had moved to Cleveland
before the war continued to endure an overall unemployment rate nearly 50 percent higher than their white counterparts. The disparity between black and white women was much wider, with the unemployment rate for southern-born black women nearly four times greater than for white women. More than 80 percent of the unemployed black women were experienced workers. Black women migrants also had a slightly higher unemployment rate than black men, over 90 percent of whom were also experienced workers. It should be noted that these figures only count people in the labor force. If the those who were not in the labor force were included, the rates of unemployment would be even higher. This is particularly true for black men since more than half of those not in the labor force were listed as “unable to work,” a category that included those unable to find a job. Further, of the southern-born black men who were employed in 1940, roughly
48 See Table E.3 in Appendix E. 49
Carol Poh Miller and Robert Wheeler, Cleveland: A Concise History, 1796-1990, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 136.
one third owed their jobs to federal emergency work programs initiated during the Depression.50
The mobilization for World War II provided Cleveland, a vital steel center for the nation, with a needed stimulus, boosting the demand for workers beyond what the local labor market could supply and drawing in tens of thousands of workers from other regions of the country. Unemployment rates for southern-born black Clevelanders fell by almost half for men (from 16 to 7 percent), and by nearly 60 percent for women (from 19 to 7.5 percent). The percentage of black men and women not in the labor force declined overall, and the portion of black men out of the labor force listed as “unable to work” fell by 80 percent, indicating the expanded job possibilities for black men and women during the war and subsequent period of postwar prosperity (Table E.4). Southern-born black Cleveland residents enjoyed a higher rate of employment compared to the total black population of the city, as the overall unemployment rate for black Clevelanders sat at 11 percent in 1950. The 5.7 percent unemployment rate for white Clevelanders was
approximately half the rate for blacks, revealing that the prosperity of the wartime and postwar period was not shared equally.51
In addition to the racial disparity in employment rates, black migrants with jobs found themselves restricted to particular occupations, a reality shared by black Cleveland residents of all origns. Undoubtedly, at least some of the jobs open to southern-born black residents of Cleveland paid considerably higher wages than they could earn in the South. However, such jobs were not especially easy to acquire, and even then they were
50
See Table E.4 in Appendix E.
frequently the heaviest, dirtiest, most dangerous, or otherwise least desirable jobs available. Lewis Robinson’s experience looking for work in Cleveland is illustrative of the range of possibilities many migrants could expect to encounter. Arriving in 1944 with an above-average level of education, Robinson’s first job was a temporary position as a dishwasher in a downtown restaurant where he earned fifty cents an hour. Robison quickly found another job in a corner drug store with help from his uncle, though the position was part-time and paid him only $6.50 a week. Several weeks later Robinson was back in food service, having landed a full-time job as a porter and busboy that paid fifty cents per hour with help from his network of friends and relatives. Robinson stayed on for several months, quitting after an argument with his manager. It took him two weeks to find another job loading trucks at a beverage company for forty-five cents an hour. It was “backbreaking” work, but Robinson stayed there for six months until the school year ended. Able to work full time through the summer, Robinson joined
Cleveland's industrial labor force, shoveling bolts at the bolt and nut division of Republic Steel for seventy-five cents per hour, a job he kept when school resumed in the fall by working nights.52
Despite his youth, Robinson’s employment profile is fairly representative of black migrants to Cleveland generally who were concentrated in several occupational
categories in 1940.53
Among employed men, more worked as laborers (47 percent) than anything else. Another 20 percent found jobs as operatives, primarily working in unskilled trades, while roughly the same proportion filled the ranks of service workers 52
Robinson, The Making of a Man, 23-32.
outside of private households, mostly as porters. Within his first two years of living in Cleveland, Robinson held jobs in all of these categories. A relative handful of southern- born black men (7 percent) were listed as craftsmen, while fewer still held jobs as clerical workers. A select few (3 percent) occupied the ranks of professional and technical
workers. White southern migrants fared better, with men generally sinking no lower than operatives (though 9 percent worked as laborers), and occupying jobs in white-collar categories at a much higher rate than black men. Indeed, fully 34 percent of white men born in the south worked in white-collar job categories. Black women found themselves restricted to work in the service sector. Domestic service in private households accounted for almost 50 percent of employed black women migrants, while those in the service sector outside private homes, primarily charwomen and cleaners, made up another 25 percent. The final quarter held jobs as operatives, many in laundry or dry cleaning. Less than a third of white female migrants were in the labor force in 1940, an those who were worked primarily as clerical workers or in sales, though a lesser number worked in the service sector as domestics and waitresses.
The shifting labor market during the war did indeed open the doors to some job categories for southern-born blacks that had previously been closed to them. By 1950, fewer black men worked as laborers, though this category still accounted for 30 percent of those with jobs. The proportion working as operatives increased by nearly a third to include 28 percent of employed black male migrants, and the ranks of craftsmen grew slightly to 12 percent. Perhaps most impressively, southern-born black men made considerable gains among the ranks of managers, officials and proprietors, a category
accounting for less than 1 percent of those employed in 1940 which had grown to encompass 6 percent by 1950. While black male migrants made modest gains in white collar employment, southern-born white men actually lost ground, though only slightly. Further, the decline in white collar workers among white male migrants coincided with an increase in skilled blue collar workers as the percentage of craftsmen grew, likely reflecting the large influx of workers to fill jobs in the war industries rather than a decline in status for white migrant workers generally. Indeed, the percentage of southern-born white men working as laborers also declined during the decade. Southern-born black women saw fewer changes in their job opportunities during the 1940s, and most were still working in domestic service which accounted for 30 percent of those in the labor force. Almost as many (29 percent) were service workers outside of private households. While this shift may have resulted in more favorable working conditions for some black women who left domestic service, the jobs available to them outside of private homes, primarily hospital attendants, charwomen, and waitresses, were far from glamorous. Like the men, black women migrants gained limited entry to professional occupations in larger
numbers, especially nursing, as well as other kinds of white collar work. Southern-born black women also joined the labor force at a much faster rate than their white
counterparts. Overall, the labor force distribution of black migrants to Cleveland was the same as the distribution for all black Cleveland residents.
While detailed gender-differentiated data are lacking for 1960, census data reveal that the general trends did not change much. Black workers continued to make slight gains, with a higher percentage employed as operatives and fewer employed as laborers.
Still, service work accounted for the greatest percentage of black workers at just over 26 percent. Fewer than 10 percent worked as craftsmen or foremen, though nearly as many had joined the ranks of clerical workers. White workers maintained their hold on the best jobs, as more than 60 percent held jobs as skilled laborers and white collar workers.54
The racial disparity in employment is reflected in the income differential between black and white southern migrants.55 As white migrants were more evenly dispersed
throughout the range of occupational categories, they were also evenly spread throughout income groupings, so evenly spread, in fact, that the white migrant population in 1940 can be neatly divided into quintiles based on wage and salary income levels. Eighteen percent of southern-born whites earned less than $500, accounting for the poorest quintile. Another 19 percent earned incomes from $500 to $999. Those earning between $1000 and $1499 accounted for another 19 percent of white migrants, as did those with incomes from $1500 to $1999. The remaining 25 percent brought home wage and salary incomes of $2000 or more, including an elite 5 percent with incomes over $5000. Black southern migrants by contrast were much more heavily concentrated among the lowest income groups. The poorest quintile accounted for a third of the black migrant
population, though the majority earned slightly more, with 51 percent earning incomes from $500 to $999, placing them in the second quintile. An additional 14 percent
managed incomes from $1000 to $1499, while just 2 percent earned between $1500 and $1999. Fewer than one percent of southern-born blacks in Cleveland earned between $2000 and $2499, and none earned more.
54
Cooper, “The Negro in Cleveland,” Table 9, 33. 55 See Table E.9 in Appendix E.
The stimulus of the war decade helped boost black incomes just as it provided access to better jobs. Indeed, by 1950 the income distribution of black migrants was considerably more even than it was in 1940, although over 30 percent earned less than $1000 and only 12 percent earned more than $3000. A majority of 55 percent earned incomes from $1000 to $3000. A slim majority of white migrants (50 percent) also earned incomes between $100 and $3000, however the remainder of the white migrant
population was more equally balanced between those earning less than $1000 (24 percent) and those earning more than $3000 (26 percent).
Further evidence that the income disparity between black and white migrants was rooted in the racially discriminatory labor markets can be found in data comparing the incomes of white and black workers while controlling for education. Data for Cleveland are lacking, however a state-level comparison of the median income of white and
nonwhite men 25 years and older reveals that whites earned more than nonwhites at every education level, and the gap grew wider as the level of education increased.56 Given that
this trend also held regionally for black and white southerners who relocated during the World War II-era migration, there is little reason to think that Cleveland would provide the exception. Instead it seems likely that most black southerners with education had little opportunity to find jobs in areas where they could apply it.