Was the ministry an ethnic niche for urban Blacks in the early twentieth century?

It has been claimed that, in the early twentieth century, the ministry was an "ethnic niche" for Blacks-that is, an occupation into which Blacks gravitated in order to avoid joblessness during periods of economic dislocation. This study evaluates that claim by testing the hypothesis that the employment rate of Black men in the ministry was highest in those cities where the pressure on these men to find relief from unemployment was greatest. Census data on Northern and Southern cities in 1940, a year of the Great Depression, were examined. A multiple regression analysis shows that the hypothesis was most applicable to the Southern cities, possibly because the higher rate of church participation in the South provided Blacks in this region with favorable opportunities to establish an ethnic niche in the ministry. (c) 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.