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THE AMENIA CONFERENCES                                DIGGS

the solution of old and new problems. They agreed to meet annually.
  
  In response to the demand created by industrial expansion more black labor drifted North after the United States entered the First World War and continued afterwards because of the reduction in foreign immigration, and because employers, traditionally hostile to the employment of Blacks, now realized their value in breaking strikes and in defeating the efforts of unionism. Undisciplined in collective bargaining, ignorant of trade union traditions, distrustful of white workers especially when organized, and led by leaders conditioned by philanthropy and charity, black workers not only permitted themselves to be used as strike breakers but accepted the employer's terms as to wages and working conditions, especially non-membership in trade unions. This transfer of black labor from South to North, from domestic and small industrial employment to capitalistic industry, increased the bitterness between black and white workers-as witnessed in the Chicago and East St. Louis riots.

  During and after the First World War the horizon of Blacks was widened, a self-confidence and a greater responsibility for their self-determination were developed. When white mods assaulted Blacks, burned and robbed their homes and stores, Blacks fought back ferociously. Blacks believed Wilson's promise of freedom, a world safe for democracy, the rights of minorities, the self-determination of peoples. There was confident hope that as a result of the war, prejudice and discrimination would lessen appreciably. Blacks had fought for these things on the battlefield thousands of miles from home; they were more aware of the discrepancies in the promises when they returned. They were bitter, impatient, defiant, resentful. If such were possible, the bitterness and resentment increased as did the number of those expressing it.

  Black writers and orators have always been articulate. Now more Blacks were articulate in transforming their thoughts and feelings in a variety of literary forms. As always, their feelings of hate and hurt were expressed in artistic form. While New York was the center of intellectual and cultural life not only for whites but for Blacks, it did not have a monopoly on the literary and artistic activity in the decade following the First World War. The rather unwilling Mabel Dodge was persuaded to permit Blacks to attend her famous artist soirees, thus helping to forge a link between the Harlem Renaissance and Greenwich Village artistic movements. Blacks protested against segregation, lynching; they demanded higher wages, shorter hours, better conditions of work, they demanded social

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