John Smith’s map of Virginia, engraved by William Hole and published in 1612. Public domain.
War plants pulled another great migration, including Black workers into industrial jobs that had been closed, and housing in the boom cities did not keep up.
A household that arrived for a defense wage could earn more than the farm had paid and then spend the gain on a bed in a crowded, segregated district.
A household already in the city, with a skilled rating or a union foothold, gained overtime and could resent newcomers competing for the same rooms.
An employer who needed bodies, and who was under a federal order not to discriminate in defense work, hired people the plant had refused a few years earlier, sometimes only for the duration.
Executive Order 8802, issued in 1941, barred discrimination by defense contractors and set up a fair-employment committee with more moral force than power to punish.
The labor shortage did the rest of the hiring.
Wages drew people out of the South and off the land, and the new paycheck met the old housing lines.
Executive Order 8802 (1941); Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns (2010)