growing industrial center, was one of those places black people sought refuge and prosperity, with the city's black population growing by 4 percent per year. By the turn of the century, there were nearly 2,500 black people in the city, representing about 7 percent of the population, which was about 35,000. The same level of growth had not been true for Springfield's European immigrant population in this period. The annual growth rate of the immigrant population was 0.15 percent, not growing beyond roughly 4,500 people. But after the turn of the century, immigrant settlement in Springfield increased rapidly. Around 1890, the migration of black people to Springfield began to slow. In the early 20th century, black people from the rural South began the Great Migration, and many began moving to larger cities, such as New York and Chicago. Between 1900 and 1908, the annual black migration rate in Springfield decreased from 4 percent to 3 percent. Meanwhile, for European immigrants, the trend was the reverse. By July 1908, Springfield's population was over 45,000 (of which about 40 percent were under the age of 21). Of those 45,000, nearly 6,500 were European immigrants, who together with their first generation American offspring accounted for 40 percent of Springfield's population, while native white Americans made up just under 55 percent and black people about 6 percent. These population shifts had economic, political and social implications, particularly as the unemployment rate increased from under 3 percent to 8 percent between May 1907 and June 1908, during the Panic. In 1908, there were slightly more than 1,000 black men in Springfield's workforce. About 50 percent were porters and laborers; only 150 were employed as miners. Most of the rest were restricted to lower-class and unskilled jobs (for example, there were no white janitors in the city), but some worked for the city as firemen and policemen.) Black people generally lived in the racially segregated neighborhoods of "The Levee" and "The Badlands". Realtors used restrictive covenants that prevented black people from purchasing property elsewhere. Social tensions rose due to the swelling immigrant population, the decrease in job stability, and the movement of a few upper middle class black people into white neighborhoods. Resentment among white immigrants ran high against black people. Whites resented upward mobility among black people as a threat to a social order in which they should always be superior, and white business owners