DC,  Cause and effect still isn't being shown.  Nokes' quote is just a statement with  no evidence to support it.  If anything, the evidence supports just the opposite, the black exclusion laws were meaningless in black's decision to move to or not move to Oregon from 1845 to 1927 when the laws was repealed by whites I might add.  CA has a larger population of blacks than OR and WA due mostly by the great gold rush and the transcontinental railroad economic booms.  Things really begin to change around 1940 with the WWII economic boom.  Unfortunately for Oregon, unlike CA and WA, it doesn't have a war industry placed in like like CA and WA except for Portland.  So why aren't blacks moving in large numbers to and throughout Oregon now?  My line of inquiry would begin with because there is no economic reason for them to do so, not because of some past exclusion laws that ended 89 years ago that nobody paid any attention to even when they were in effect.