Back of the Hiring Line: A 200-Year History of Immigration Surges, Employer Bias, and Depression of Black Wealth [Audiobook]

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.