The Civil War of 1861-1865 eliminated slavery in the United States. It was replaced by more sophisticated forms of oppression, racial segregation and discrimination of the Black population, 9/10 of which by the beginning of the XX century. still living in the southern states. The First World War had a profound impact on his future fate. The supply of American weapons and ammunition to Western Europe grew by leaps and bounds. New factories were being built in the United States, and more and more workers were needed. The mobilization of 4 million Americans, including nearly 400,000 Blacks, has also increased the demand for labor. Meanwhile, European immigration to the United States has temporarily almost stopped. Encouraged by recruiters from the North, hundreds of thousands of Negroes moved from the South to the northern cities. In total, from 1914 to 1918, up to 500 thousand Negroes moved there. 3/4 of them settled in such major industrial centers as New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, St. Louis, etc. In 1910, 27% of all Blacks in the United States lived in cities, and 10 years later - 34%. They worked in industry and construction, in transport and in the service sector 1, performing, as a rule, unskilled, heavy and low-paid work. Taking advantage of the ignorance and inexperience of the immigrants, monopolies often hired them as strikebreakers, and unions from the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which did not allow Negroes to join unions, automatically pushed them to this path. Artificially inflamed racial antagonism between white and black workers helped the owners disrupt most strikes. After the United States entered World War I in 1917, President Wilson declared: "Now that thousands of your sons are in military camps and fighting in France, you Negroes can expect to enjoy full civil rights at the end of the war - the same rights that every American citizen enjoys."2 But when African-Americans demanded the promised rights, white s ... Read more