respectively, as a
result of movements of our population, contributed much towards
intensifying the ill feelings already existing between the two groups.

Furthermore, the coming of the Negroes to the North in such large
numbers and their employment in trades and industries hitherto closed
to them brought to the front the old problem of the Negro and the
labor unions. With few exceptions, the Negroes have generally been
barred from membership in the unions on account of race prejudice; and
this has especially been the case in the North where the unions are
oldest and most powerful and influential in labor affairs. Here white
union laborers have manifested their prejudice by repeatedly refusing
to work with Negro employes. This naturally prevented employers from
utilizing Negro labor, and the outcome of this policy was to exclude
the Negroes from the better paying positions and to push them almost
wholly into those avocations which are unskilled or unsettled.[119]
The Negroes have thus been forced into positions where generally they
must work for less pay than the unionists, and because of this the
latter have branded Negro laborers as "scabs," notwithstanding the
fact that the doors of the unions were closed to them. Unwilling to
bear this stigma, which made them an object of contempt in the eyes of
trades unionists, Negro workers made efforts to organize themselves
and drew up petitions requesting admission into the unions. These
efforts, however, have been again and again made fruitless by the
local labor unions which discriminate against men on account of race
and color. When this matter has been referred to the national and
international councils these latter bodies have held that their
constitutions recognize no such discriminations, but at the same time
acknowledged their inability to control these local unions. These
locals, therefore, have been a great obstacle to the unionization of
Negroes.[120]

Evidently this decree of the American Federation of Labor was not
obeyed by all its affiliated internationals, because at its next
annual meeting, held in Montreal, Canada, June, 1920, the question of
Negro admittance to membership in unions figured as a conspicuous part
of its proceedings. On this occasion the discussion of this question
arose out of allegations made by delegates, mainly Negroes from
Northern States, which accused the Brotherhood of Railway Clerks
(whose constitution provides for white membership