Back of the Hiring Line

A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth

De: Roy Beck

Narrado por: Roy Beck

Duración: 7 h y 9 m

Resumen del Editor

One hundred fifty years after the end of slavery and nearly 60 years after the passage of the civil rights laws of the 1960s, average Black household wealth in the 21st century remains a fraction of the median assets of other racial, ethnic, and immigrant populations.

There are many reasons, but this book is about one: two centuries of governmental encouragement of periodic sustained surges in immigration.

Governmental policies and actions have enabled employers to depress Black wages and to avoid hiring African Americans altogether.

Here is a grand sweep of the little-told stories of the struggles of freed slaves and their descendants to climb job ladders in the eras of Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, A. Philip Randolph, Barbara Jordan, and other African American leaders who advocated for tight labor migration policies. It is a history of bitter disappointments and, occasionally, of great hope:

• Setback: the first European immigration surge after 1820 and the ensuing, sometimes violent, labor competition
• Hope: the post-Civil War opening of the "golden door" to Northern and Western jobs
• Setback: the Ellis Island-era great wave of immigration
• Hope: Major reductions in immigration in the mid-20th century creates a labor demand among Northern and Western industrialists so great that they aggressively recruited descendants of slavery and precipitated the Great Migration of Black Southerners
• Setback: In 1965, Congress accidentally restarts mass immigration

Looking to the future, the author finds in the past assurance that any immigration policy that helps move more Black workers into the labor force and increases their wealth accumulation will also assist struggling Hispanics and other populations of recent immigration.

©2021 Roy Beck (P)2021 Roy Beck

Essential Reading for ALL Americans

This book cuts through the liberal confusion that diverts diversity, equity, inclusion and antiracism to everything but anti-Black racism. Beck centers the negative impact squarely on the population most affected: Freedmen/descendants of slaves and their communities/our cities. Back of the Hiring Line makes it clear that immigration reduction is a call to action that all Americans should embrace because all Americans are affected. We are zero degrees of separation from a failure of our countrymen!

This is a MUST-READ book

This book helps the reader to understand the major historical effects immigration has on Freedmen since the Immigration Act of 1965.

The historic references, arguments and laws cited are spot on.

Research-backed insights

This book offers a humanized perspective to the labor and economic challenges faced by African Americans.

A good story addressing a factor driving the wealth gap in America.

I never knew this kind of insight going back 200 years was available. I was surprised to learn the biggest step forward in AA household economic growth occurred 1924 to 1965 during periods of modest immigration.