ABSTRACT
The approach of World War II brought a sharp economic improvement. As the general level of wages rose, Negroes could hardly escape getting some of the benefits. Meanwhile a profound change in the economic pattern of the Old South was having a further effect upon Negro fortunes. A series of Supreme Court decisions set aside many of the laws and practices which had kept Negroes from the polls and from educational opportunity. Most striking of all the changes, perhaps, was a new attitude on the part of younger white Americans, both North and South—a very widespread resolve to accept Negroes as people without regard to their color. By the mid-century there were 94,000 Negro students in American colleges and universities. The movement of Negroes away from tenant farming and into industry, and out of the Old South into other parts of the country, was combining with the general change in public attitudes to mitigate the deplorable situation described by Myrdal.
