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Re: The Old Oakland Central (16th Street) Amtrak Station Area Questions
Author: Mike Swanson
Date: 11-20-2011 - 20:42
Dr Zarkoff Wrote:
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> >And just out of curiosity what situation effected
> the demographics of the City of Oakland to gain
> such a large disproportional black population
> unlike most areas of the U.S. or in California and
> parts of the City such as this West Oakland
> neighborhood to become a run down ghetto
> neighborhood?
>
> World War Two.
More specifically, the fact that large numbers of jobs (war-related or otherwise) that would have been off-limits to blacks were opened up to them as most of the white male workforce went off to war, most of those jobs evaporated after the war and the remainder quickly became "off limits" once again as that same white male workforce returned from the war, and very few of those blacks who had come to Oakland and the East Bay for those jobs wanted to go back home (and the whites back home didn't want them back at all). And things went downhill from there, in typical California fashion...
-------------------------------------------------------
> >And just out of curiosity what situation effected
> the demographics of the City of Oakland to gain
> such a large disproportional black population
> unlike most areas of the U.S. or in California and
> parts of the City such as this West Oakland
> neighborhood to become a run down ghetto
> neighborhood?
>
> World War Two.
More specifically, the fact that large numbers of jobs (war-related or otherwise) that would have been off-limits to blacks were opened up to them as most of the white male workforce went off to war, most of those jobs evaporated after the war and the remainder quickly became "off limits" once again as that same white male workforce returned from the war, and very few of those blacks who had come to Oakland and the East Bay for those jobs wanted to go back home (and the whites back home didn't want them back at all). And things went downhill from there, in typical California fashion...
