The great migration

The Great Migration

What is the Great Migration?• The Great Migration was a massive relocation

of African Americans from the rural Southern states to cities of the North.

• The First Wave: 1910 to 1930 (1.6 million people). After 1930 the migration slowed down a bit because of the Great Depression.

• Second Wave: 1940 to 1970 (5 million people). The U.S. entered the Second World War in 1941.

They came from…

Alabama Mississippi

Louisiana

(To name a few States…)

And went to…

New York

Detroit

St. Louis

As well as Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Indianapolis

In 1900, 90% of blacks lived in Southern States!

Why did African Americans leave the South?

Let’s Go Back in the Time Machine…

• The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863. Four million people, poor, displaced, and mostly illiterate, are free but homeless.

• During the Civil War Some “freedmen” ran to the Union army for protection.

• The Union army didn’t know what to do with these “refugees,” it could barely care for its own troops.

• Many freed slaves died of diseases in the Union stockades.

 • Many took to the roads

in search of work, sometimes traveling over mountains with little more than their clothes.

• But most of them remained in the South.

• Southern economy was in ruins. Many freed blacks returned to the plantations as sharecroppers.

• No change from their slave life, but they were able to keep their families together.

• Many went into debt to their former white owners (or farm owners) to pay for food, clothing, shelter etc.

Despite their apparent freedom, African Americans received little protection in the South. They took one step forward and two steps back.

Reconstruction was a failure…

The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was declared unconstitutional in 1883 by the Supreme Court.

• Due to limited funds, and political corruption, the Freedman’s Bureau was shut down in 1872.

Reconstruction was a failure….• “Jim Crow Laws” segregated races.• Violence was common place:• over 2,800 victims of lynch mobs from

1882 to 1930 in 10 Southern states. • 2,500 victims were Black.

The Boll Weevil

• The arrival of an undesirable alien accelerated the changes: a beetle called the boll weevil, the most destructive cotton pest in North America.

• It crossed the Rio Grande, to enter the United States from Mexico in 1892 and reached southeastern Alabama in 1909.

• By the mid-1920s, it had entered all cotton-growing regions in the U.S., travelling 40 to 160 miles per year.

• It contributed to the economic collapse of Southern farmers

• Thousands of farm workers were displaced.• long reign of King Cotton was finally brought to an end.

Collapse of Agriculture

In the meanwhile

• New opportunities in the North…

Possibilities Opens Up…In 1910, new opportunities emerged for AfricanAmericans as an industrial boom in the North

sparked demand for new workers.

And Then a Miraculous Thing Happened…

World War…

• World War I brought a halt to European immigration to supply American factories in the North.

• The War called for a massive production of arms and supplies. There was a severe labor shortage

• Wars always create an economic “boom.”

• Northern factories began recruiting workers from the South.

Promised Land…• Reports spread of abundant job

opportunities in the North.

• Recruiters set up stations on street corners in Southern towns and offered train tickets to young and strong men

• Recruiters published success stories in local newspapers of those that had traveled to work in the North.

• These stories were read in barber shops and churches.

• “Migration Fever” swept through the South.

• News of incredible opportunities in the North—better housing, the right to vote, high-paying jobs—became a frequent topic of conversation in black southern homes

• Friends and family in the North described their good fortune.

• The Chicago Defender, the major black newspaper: • stories about northern job opportunities,• And about risks of staying in the South.

The Great Migration•1910-1930 Movement of 1.6 million African Americans out of the rural south into the Northeast, Midwest, and West.•New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Indianapolis•Largest internal movement of an American population.

The Journey

• They traveled by train, boat, bus, car, and even in horse drawn carriages.

• Travelers were segregated in public transit waiting rooms and en-route. African American travelers could find little to eat or drink on their stops.• The journey was long and slow.

Many stopped to find work along the way. This was called “step migration.”

• Fares skyrocketed from $.02 cents per mile in 1915 to $.24 cents per mile three years later.

Effects of the Great Migration

• But what else?...• Was the Great migration Emancipatory?

Urbanization

• The effect on northern cities was dramatic.

• Between 1910 and 1920 black population increased by• 66 percent in New York, • 150 percent in Chicago, • over 600 percent in Detroit. Harlem and the Southside became

known as black enclaves

• The Migration created housing shortages in urban areas. Banks limit lending to Blacks. Migrants lived in tenement housing. During this time Harlem became the “Black Mecca.”

• “Separate But Equal becomes common-place.

• Resurgeance of the KKK

• Race riots (St. Louis) in factories.

Black reception

• Were hired as scab labor, employed either to break a local union or to force striking whites back to work.

• snubbed by existing White immigrant labor groups because willing to work for lower wages.

• And by Earlier black settlers, as problems increased with each new arrival: job, housing & political anxieties.

Push & Pull Factors of the Great Migration

Jim Crow Laws in the South (Push)

Racial Violence in the South (Push)

Limited Economic Opportunities in the South (Push)

Increased Demand for Industrial Workers in the North (Pull)

Better Educational Opportunities in the North (Pull)

Increased Political Opportunities in the North (Pull)

No time for cheating, it’s quiz time

A. The end of WW1

B. Violence in the North

C. Harlem Renaissance

D. Great Depression

Q1 The 1st wave of the Great migration stopped in 1930 because of:

A. Lived in Southern States!B. Moved to Northern States!C. Were lynched!D. Were illiterate!

Q2In 1900, 90% of black

A. were welcomed as heroesB. died of diseasesC. were killedD. were sent back to Africa

Q3During the Civil War, the Freedmen

who ran to the Union Army

A. a variety of cotton grown in the southB. a beetle that devastated Southern

cottonC. a disease of cotton workersD. a train transporting southern blacks

north

Q4Boll Weevil is the name of

A. THEY WERE RUNNING AWAY FROM SLAVERYB. IT WAS TOO HOT IN THE SOUTHC. THEY DIDN’T WANT TO FARM ANYMORED. THE ECONOMIC INSTABILITY OF THE SOUTH

Q5One reason for The Great Migration was:

A. Economic hardshipsB. ViolenceC. Segregation D. Job opportunities in factories

Q6One of the pull factors was

A. The Missouri DefenderB. The Louisiana DefenderC. The Chicago DefenderD. The Alabama Defender

Q7THE MAJOR BLACK NEWSPAPER

ADVERTIZING FOR JOBS WAS

A. STOP MIGRATION”B. “TRANSIT MIGRATION”C. “SPOT MIGRATION”D. “STEP MIGRATION”

Q8FOR MIGRATING BLACKS, STOPPING TO FIND

WORK ALONG THE WAY WAS CALLED

A. 6 MILLION B. 5 MILLIONC. 1.6 MILLIOND. 5.6 MILLION

Q9 NUMBER OF AFRICAN AMERICANS WHO PARTICIPATED IN THE 1ST GREAT MIGRATION

A. SEGREGATION AND VIOLENCE WAS COMMON PLACE IN THE NORTH

B. MIGRATING AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE WELCOMED BY OLDER BLACK IMMIGRANTS

C. MIGRATING AFRICAN AMERICANS WERE ACCUSED OF LOWERING WAGES

D. ALL OF THE ABOVE STATEMENTS

Q10WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING STATEMENTS

IS WRONG