The opportunity for economic advancement was one of the greatest attractions for African Americans in the South, no matter what conditions they might find. “…the war was not enough…to stem the flow of migrants from the south; it was better to risk a sudden explosion on the streets of a big city than face perpetual poverty and oppression in the cotton fields of Alabama or Mississippi” (Boyle 99). Boyle's account of history in this time period reflects that white supremacy and ethnocentrism were driven by the economic ambitions of African Americans. Boyle thematically argues that Southern African Americans, acting to improve their incomes and economic stability by migrating North and taking job positions in Northern labor factories, affirmed race as a root cause of the economic depression seen by white supremacists. Furthermore, even influential businessmen of this period viewed the ambitions of their minority workers as a threat to the nation's progress, "Henry Ford lashed out at the Jewish bankers and their Bolshevik allies, who were conspiring to destroy everything that Anglo-Saxon businessmen had built, his fury was tinged with longing for those halcyon days when immigrants and Negroes knew their place” (Boyle 7). As a result, the emergence of the African American population in the North pushed nationwide segregation as race moved across the country for economic reasons.