Let me quote once again from one of my most referenced books on the status of Africans within America, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy (1944, Gunner Myrdal):

If we forget about the means, for the moment, and consider only the quantitative goal for Negro population
policy, there is no doubt that the overwhelming majority of white Americans desire that there be as few Negroes as possible in America. If the Negroes could be eliminated from America or greatly decreased in numbers, this would meet the whites' approval—provided that it could be accomplished by means which are also approved. Correspondingly, an increase of the proportion of Negroes in the American population is commonly looked upon as undesirable. (from page 167)