The Great Migration, sometimes known as the Great Northward Migration or the Black Migration, was the movement of six million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West between 1910 and 1970.[1] It was substantially caused by poor economic and social conditions due to prevalent racial segregation and discrimination in the Southern states where Jim Crow laws were upheld.[2][3] In particular, continued lynchings motivated a portion of the migrants, as African Americans searched for social reprieve. The historic change brought by the migration was amplified because the migrants, for the most part, moved to the then-largest cities in the United States (New York City, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C.) at a time when those cities had a central cultural, social, political, and economic influence over the United States; there, African Americans established culturally influential communities of their own.[4] According to Isabel Wilkerson, despite the loss of leaving their homes in the South, and the barriers faced by the migrants in their new homes, the migration was an act of individual and collective agency, which changed the course of American history, a "declaration of independence" written by their actions.[5]
From the earliest U.S. population statistics in 1780 until 1910, more than 90% of the African-American population lived in the American South,[6][7][8] making up the majority of the population in three Southern states, namely Louisiana (until about 1890[9]), South Carolina (until the 1920s[10]), and Mississippi (until the 1930s[11]). But by the end of the Great Migration, just over half of the African-American population lived in the South, while a little less than half lived in the North and West.[12] Moreover, the African-American population had become highly urbanized. In 1900, only one-fifth of African Americans in the South were living in urban areas.[13] By 1960, half of the African Americans in the South lived in urban areas,[13] and by 1970, more than 80% of African Americans nationwide lived in cities.[14] In 1991, Nicholas Lemann wrote:
The Great Migration was one of the largest and most rapid mass internal movements in history—perhaps the greatest not caused by the immediate threat of execution or starvation. In sheer numbers, it outranks the migration of any other ethnic group—Italians or Irish or Jews or Poles—to the United States. For Black people, the migration meant leaving what had always been their economic and social base in America and finding a new one.[15]
Some historians differentiate between a first Great Migration (1910–40), which saw about 1.6 million people move from mostly rural areas in the South to northern industrial cities, and a Second Great Migration (1940–70), which began after the Great Depression and brought at least five million people—including many townspeople with urban skills—to the North and West.[16]
Since the Civil Rights Movement, the trend has reversed, with more African Americans moving to the South, albeit far more slowly. Dubbed the New Great Migration, these moves were generally spurred by the economic difficulties of cities in the Northeastern and Midwestern United States, growth of jobs in the "New South" and its lower cost of living, family and kinship ties, and lessening discrimination.[17]
Causes
The Arthur family arrived at Chicago's Polk Street Depot on August 30, 1920, during the Great Migration.
The primary factors for migration among southern African Americans were segregation, indentured servitude, convict leasing, an increase in the spread of racist ideology, widespread lynching (nearly 3,500 African Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1968[19]), and lack of social and economic opportunities in the South. Some factors pulled migrants to the north, such as labor shortages in northern factories brought about by World War I, resulting in thousands of jobs in steel mills, railroads, meatpacking plants, and the automobile industry.[20] The pull of jobs in the north was strengthened by the efforts of labor agents sent by northern businessmen to recruit southern workers.[20] Northern companies offered special incentives to encourage Black workers to relocate, including free transportation and low-cost housing.[21]
During World War I, there was a decline in European immigrants, which slowed the supply of workers for Northern factories. Around 1.2 million European immigrants arrived during 1914 while only 300,000 arrived the next year. The enlistment of workers into the military had also affected the labor supply. This created a wartime opportunity in the North for African Americans, as the Northern industry sought a new labor supply from the South.[22]
There were many advantages for Northern jobs compared to Southern jobs including wages that could be double or more. The southern sharecropping system, an agricultural depression, the widespread infestation of the cotton boll weevil, and flooding also provided motivation for African Americans to move into the Northern Cities. The South's pervasive exclusion of African Americans from political power, their lack of representation, and a dearth of social opportunities - in a culture regulated by Jim Crow laws - also motivated African Americans to migrate Northward.[22]
When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, less than 8% of the African-American population lived in the Northeastern or Midwestern United States.[23] This began to change over the next decade to such an extent that a U.S. Senate committee ordered an investigation into the causes of the mass migration from the South during the preceding decade, especially to Kansas, where many sought refuge.[24] In 1900, about 90% of Black Americans still lived in Southern states.[23]
Between 1910 and 1930, the African-American population increased by about 40% in Northern states as a result of the migration, mostly in the major cities. The cities of Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, and New York City had some of the biggest increases in the early part of the twentieth century. Tens of thousands of Black workers were recruited for industrial jobs, such as positions related to the expansion of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Because changes were concentrated in cities, which had also attracted millions of new or recent European immigrants, tensions rose as the people competed for jobs and scarce housing. Tensions were often most severe between ethnic Irish, defending their recently gained positions and territory, and recent immigrants and Black people.[citation needed]
Tensions and violence
With the migration of African Americans northward and the mixing of White and Black workers in factories, the tension was building, largely driven by White workers. The AFL, the American Federation of Labor, advocated the separation between European Americans and African Americans in the workplace. There were non-violent protests such as walk-outs in protest of having Blacks and Whites working together. As tension was building due to advocating for segregation in the workplace, violence soon erupted.[25]
In 1917, the East St. Louis riot, known for one of the bloodiest workplace riots, had between 40 and 200 killed and over 6000 African Americans displaced from their homes. The NAACP, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, responded to the violence with a march known as the Silent March. More than 10,000 African-American men and women demonstrated in Harlem, New York. Conflicts continued post World War I, as African Americans continued to face conflicts and tension while the African-American labor activism continued.[25]
In the late summer and autumn of 1919, racial tensions became violent and came to be known as the Red Summer. This period of time was defined by violence and prolonged rioting between Black and White Americans in major United States cities.[26] The reasons for this violence vary. Cities that were affected by the violence included Washington D.C., Chicago, Omaha, Knoxville, Tennessee, and Elaine, Arkansas, a small rural town 70 miles (110km) southwest of Memphis.[27]
The race riots peaked in Chicago, with the most violence and death occurring there during the riots.[28] The authors of The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot, an official report from 1922 on race relations in Chicago, came to the conclusion that there were many factors that led to the violent outbursts in Chicago. Principally, many Black workers had assumed the jobs of white men who went to go fight in World War I. As the war ended in 1918, many men returned home to find out their jobs had been taken by Black men who were willing to work for far less.[27]
By the time the rioting and violence had subsided in Chicago, 38 people had lost their lives, with 500 more injured. Additionally, $250,000 worth of property was destroyed, and over a thousand persons were left homeless.[29] In other cities across the nation many more had been affected by the violence of the Red Summer. The Red Summer enlightened many to the growing racial tension in America. The violence in these major cities prefaced the soon to follow Harlem Renaissance, an African-American cultural revolution, in the 1920s.[28] Racial violence appeared again in Chicago in the 1940s and in Detroit as well as other cities in the Northeast as racial tensions over housing and employment discrimination grew.
James Gregory calculates decade-by-decade migration volumes in his book The Southern Diaspora. Black migration picked up from the start of the new century, with 204,000 leaving in the first decade. The pace accelerated with the outbreak of World War I and continued through the 1920s. By 1930, there were 1.3 million former southerners living in other regions.[30]:22
The Great Depression wiped out job opportunities in the northern industrial belt, especially for African Americans, and caused a sharp reduction in migration. In the 1930s and 1940s, increasing mechanization of agriculture virtually brought the institution of sharecropping that had existed since the Civil War to an end in the United States causing many landless Black farmers to be forced off of the land.[31]
As a result, approximately 1.4 million Black southerners moved north or west in the 1940s, followed by 1.1 million in the 1950s, and another 2.4 million people in the 1960s and early 1970s. By the late 1970s, as deindustrialization and the Rust Belt crisis took hold, the Great Migration came to an end. But, in a reflection of changing economics, as well as the end of Jim Crow laws in the 1960s and improving race relations in the South, in the 1980s and early 1990s, more Black Americans were heading South than leaving that region.[32]:12–17
The Great Depression of the 1930s resulted in reduced migration because of decreased opportunities. With the defense buildup for World War II and with the post-war economic prosperity, migration was revived, with larger numbers of Black Americans leaving the South through the 1960s. This wave of migration often resulted in overcrowding of urban areas due to exclusionary housing policies meant to keep African-American families out of developing suburbs. For example, in the New York and northern New Jersey suburbs 67,000 mortgages were insured by the G.I. Bill, but fewer than 100 were taken out by non-whites.[33][34]
Migration patterns
African American population distribution during the Great Migration
There were clear migratory patterns that linked particular states and cities in the South to corresponding destinations in the North and West. Almost half of those who migrated from Mississippi during the first Great Migration, for example, ended up in Chicago, while those from Virginia tended to move to Philadelphia. For the most part, these patterns were related to geography (i.e. longitude), with the closest cities attracting the most migrants (such as Los Angeles and San Francisco receiving a disproportionate number of migrants from Texas and Louisiana). When multiple destinations were equidistant, chain migration played a larger role, with migrants following the path set by those before them.[21]
African Americans from the South also migrated to industrialized Southern cities, in addition to northward and westward to war-boom cities. There was an increase in Louisville's defense industries, making it a vital part of America's effort into World War II and Louisville's economy. Industries ranged from producing synthetic rubber, smokeless powders, artillery shells, and vehicle parts. Many industries also converted to creating products for the war effort, such as Ford Motor Company converting its plant to produce military jeeps. The company Hillerich & Bradsby initially made baseball bats and then converted their production into making gunstocks.[35][36]
During the war, there was a shortage of workers in the defense industry. African Americans took the opportunity to fill in the industries' missing jobs during the war, around 4.3 million intrastate migration and 2.1 million interstate migration in the Southern states. The defense industry in Louisville reached a peak of roughly over 80,000 employment. At first, job availability was not open for African Americans, but the growing need for jobs in the defense industry and the Fair Employment Practices Committee sign by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Southern industries began to accept African Americans into the workplace.[35][36]
Migration patterns reflected network ties. Black Americans tended to go to locations in the North where other Black Americans had previously migrated. Per a 2021 study, "when one randomly chosen African American moved from a Southern birth town to a destination county, then 1.9 additional Black migrants made the same move on average."[37]
Gallery
Graph showing the percentage of the African-American population living in the American South, 1790–2010
The Great Migration shown by changes in the African-American share of populations of major U.S. cities, 1910–40 and 1940–70
Racially motivated murders per decade from 1865 to 1965.
Cultural changes
After moving from the environment of the south to the northern states, African Americans were inspired to be creative in different ways. The Great Migration resulted in the Harlem Renaissance, which was also fueled by immigrants from the Caribbean, and the Chicago Black Renaissance. In her book The Warmth of Other Suns, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson discusses the migration of "six million Black Southerners [moving] out of the terror of Jim Crow to an uncertain existence in the North and Midwest."[38]
The struggle of African-American migrants to adapt to Northern cities was the subject of Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series of paintings, created when he was a young man in New York.[39] Exhibited in 1941 at the Museum of Modern Art, Lawrence's Series attracted wide attention; he was quickly perceived as one of the most important African-American artists of the time.[40]
The Great Migration had effects on music as well as other cultural subjects. Many blues singers migrated from the Mississippi Delta to Chicago to escape racial discrimination. Muddy Waters, Chester Burnett, and Buddy Guy are among the most well-known blues artists who migrated to Chicago. Great Delta-born pianist Eddie Boyd told Living Blues magazine, "I thought of coming to Chicago where I could get away from some of that racism and where I would have an opportunity to, well, do something with my talent.... It wasn't peaches and cream [in Chicago], man, but it was a hell of a lot better than down there where I was born."[41]
Effects
Demographic changes
The Great Migration drained off much of the rural Black population of the South, and for a time, froze or reduced African-American population growth in parts of the region. The migration changed the demographics in a number of states; there were decades of Black population decline, especially across the Deep South "black belt" where cotton had been the main cash crop[32]:18— but had been devastated by the arrival of the boll weevil.[42] In 1910, African Americans constituted the majority of the population of South Carolina and Mississippi, and more than 40% in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas; by 1970, only in Mississippi did the African-American population constitute more than 30% of the state's total. "The disappearance of the 'black belt' was one of the striking effects" of the Great Migration, James Gregory wrote.[32]:18
In Mississippi, the Black American population decreased from about 56% of the population in 1910 to about 37% by 1970,[43] remaining the majority only in some Delta counties. In Georgia, Black Americans decreased from about 45% of the population in 1910 to about 26% by 1970. In South Carolina, the Black population decreased from about 55% of the population in 1910 to about 30% by 1970.[43]
The growing Black presence outside the South changed the dynamics and demographics of numerous cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and West. In 1900, only 740,000 African Americans lived outside the South, just 8% of the nation's total Black population. By 1970, more than 10.6 million African Americans lived outside the South, 47% of the nation's total.[32]:18
Because the migrants concentrated in the big cities of the north and west, their influence was magnified in those places. Cities that had been virtually all white at the start of the century became centers of Black culture and politics by mid-century. Residential segregation and redlining led to concentrations of Black people in certain areas. The northern "Black metropolises" developed an important infrastructure of newspapers, businesses, jazz clubs, churches, and political organizations that provided the staging ground for new forms of racial politics and new forms of Black culture.
As a result of the Great Migration, the first large urban Black communities developed in northern cities beyond New York, Boston, Baltimore, Washington D.C., and Philadelphia, which had Black communities even before the Civil War, and attracted migrants after the war. It is conservatively estimated that 400,000 African Americans left the South in 1916 through 1918 to take advantage of a labor shortage in industrial cities during the First World War.[44]
In 1910, the African-American population of Detroit was 6,000. The Great Migration, along with immigrants from southern and eastern Europe as well as their descendants, rapidly turned the city into the country's fourth-largest. By the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the city's African-American population had increased to 120,000.
In 1900–01, Chicago had a total population of 1,754,473.[45] By 1920, the city had added more than 1 million residents. During the second wave of the Great Migration (1940–60), the African-American population in the city grew from 278,000 to 813,000.
African-American youths play basketball in Chicago's Stateway Gardens high-rise housing project in 1973.
The flow of African Americans to Ohio, particularly to Cleveland, changed the demographics of the state and its primary industrial city. Before the Great Migration, an estimated 1.1% to 1.6% of Cleveland's population was African American.[46] By 1920, 4.3% of Cleveland's population was African American.[46] The number of African Americans in Cleveland continued to rise over the next 20 years of the Great Migration.
Other northeastern and midwestern industrial cities, such as Philadelphia, New York City, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and Omaha, also had dramatic increases in their African-American populations. By the 1920s, New York's Harlem became a center of Black cultural life, influenced by the American migrants as well as new immigrants from the Caribbean area.[47]
Educated African Americans were better able to obtain jobs after the Great Migration, eventually gaining a measure of class mobility, but the migrants encountered significant forms of discrimination. Because so many people migrated in a short period of time, the African-American migrants were often resented by the urban European-American working class (many of whom were recent immigrants themselves); fearing their ability to negotiate rates of pay or secure employment, the ethnic whites felt threatened by the influx of new labor competition. Sometimes those who were most fearful or resentful were the last immigrants of the 19th and new immigrants of the 20th century.[citation needed]
African Americans made substantial gains in industrial employment, particularly in the steel, automobile, shipbuilding, and meatpacking industries. Between 1910 and 1920, the number of Black workers employed in industry nearly doubled from 500,000 to 901,000.[44] After the Great Depression, more advances took place after workers in the steel and meatpacking industries organized into labor unions in the 1930s and 1940s, under the interracial Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The unions ended the segregation of many jobs, and African Americans began to advance into more skilled jobs and supervisory positions previously informally reserved for whites.
Between 1940 and 1960, the number of Black people in managerial and administrative occupations doubled, along with the number of Black people in white-collar occupations, while the number of Black agricultural workers in 1960 fell to one-fourth of what it was in 1940.[49] Also, between 1936 and 1959, Black income relative to white income more than doubled in various skilled trades.[50] Despite employment discrimination,[51] Black people had higher labor force participation rates than whites in every U.S. Census from 1890 to 1950.[52] As a result of these advancements, the percentage of Black families living below the poverty line declined from 87% in 1940 to 47% by 1960 and to 30% by 1970.[53]
Populations increased so rapidly among both African-American migrants and new European immigrants that there were housing shortages in most major cities. With fewer resources, the newer groups were forced to compete for the oldest, most run-down housing. Ethnic groups created territories which they defended against change. Discrimination often restricted African Americans to crowded neighborhoods. The more established populations of cities tended to move to newer housing as it was developing in the outskirts. Mortgage discrimination and redlining in inner city areas limited the newer African-American migrants' ability to determine their own housing, or obtain a fair price. In the long term, the National Housing Act of 1934 contributed to limiting the availability of loans to urban areas, particularly those areas inhabited by African Americans.[54]
Migrants going to Albany, New York found poor living conditions and employment opportunities, but also higher wages and better schools and social services. Local organizations such as the Albany Inter-Racial Council and churches, helped them, but de facto segregation and discrimination remained well into the late 20th century.[55]
Migrants going to Pittsburgh and surrounding mill towns in western Pennsylvania between 1890 and 1930 faced racial discrimination and limited economic opportunities. The Black population in Pittsburgh jumped from 6,000 in 1880 to 27,000 in 1910. Many took highly paid, skilled jobs in the steel mills. Pittsburgh's Black population increased to 37,700 in 1920 (6.4% of the total) while the Black element in Homestead, Rankin, Braddock, and others nearly doubled. They succeeded in building effective community responses that enabled the survival of new communities.[56][57] Historian Joe Trotter explains the decision process:
Although African-Americans often expressed their views of the Great Migration in biblical terms and received encouragement from northern Black newspapers, railroad companies, and industrial labor agents, they also drew upon family and friendship networks to help in the move to Western Pennsylvania. They formed migration clubs, pooled their money, bought tickets at reduced rates, and often moved ingroups. Before they made the decision to move, they gathered information and debated the pros and cons of the process.... In barbershops, poolrooms, and grocery stores, in churches, lodge halls, and clubhouses, and in private homes, Black people who lived in the South discussed, debated, and decided what was good and what was bad about moving to the urban North.[58]
Integration and segregation
White tenants seeking to prevent Black people from moving into the Sojourner Truth Project in Detroit erected this sign, 1942
In cities such as Newark, New York and Chicago, African Americans became increasingly integrated into society. As they lived and worked more closely with European Americans, the divide became increasingly indefinite. This period marked the transition for many African Americans from lifestyles as rural farmers to urban industrial workers.[59]
This migration gave birth to a cultural boom in cities such as Chicago and New York. In Chicago for instance, the neighborhood of Bronzeville became known as the "Black Metropolis". From 1924 to 1929, the "Black Metropolis" was at the peak of its golden years. Many of the community's entrepreneurs were Black during this period. "The foundation of the first African American YMCA took place in Bronzeville, and worked to help incoming migrants find jobs in the city of Chicago."[60]
The "Black Belt" geographical and racial isolation of this community, bordered to the north and east by whites, and to the south and west by industrial sites and ethnic immigrant neighborhoods, made it a site for the study of the development of an urban Black community. For urbanized people, eating proper foods in a sanitary, civilized setting such as the home or a restaurant was a social ritual that indicated one's level of respectability. The people native to Chicago had pride in the high level of integration in Chicago restaurants, which they attributed to their unassailable manners and refined tastes.[61]
Since African-American migrants retained many Southern cultural and linguistic traits, such cultural differences created a sense of "otherness" in terms of their reception by others who were already living in the cities.[62] Stereotypes ascribed to Black people during this period and ensuing generations often derived from African-American migrants' rural cultural traditions, which were maintained in stark contrast to the urban environments in which the people resided.[62]
Locals started building Black-owned establishments like bars, hotels, and churches. The Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church was one of these establishments.[63] Soloman and Cordelia Johnson founded the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in the late 1890s. Black locals were able to freely express their religious beliefs in this church, which developed into a cultural center. The Hotel Robinson was another popular institution. It was established by Albert and Margaret Robinson after gaining their freedom from slavery. They built and opened The Hotel Robinson in Julian in 1887. This hotel is still currently active and is now known as the Julian Hotel. It's the first Black-owned business in San Diego and the oldest operating hotel in Southern California.
White southern reaction
The beginning of the Great Migration exposed a paradox in race relations in the American South at that time. Although Black people were treated with extreme hostility and subjected to legal discrimination, the southern economy was deeply dependent on them as an abundant supply of cheap labor, and Black workers were seen as the most critical factor in the economic development of the South. One South Carolina politician summed up the dilemma: "Politically speaking, there are far too many negroes, but from an industrial standpoint there is room for many more."[64]
When the Great Migration started in the 1910s, white southern elites seemed to be unconcerned, and industrialists and cotton planters saw it as a positive, as it was siphoning off surplus industrial and agricultural labor. As the migration picked up, however, southern elites began to panic, fearing that a prolonged Black exodus would bankrupt the South, and newspaper editorials warned of the danger. White employers eventually took notice and began expressing their fears. White southerners soon began trying to stem the flow in order to prevent the hemorrhaging of their labor supply, and some even began attempting to address the poor living standards and racial oppression experienced by Southern Black people in order to induce them to stay.
As a result, southern employers increased their wages to match those on offer in the North, and some individual employers even opposed the worst excesses of Jim Crow laws. When the measures failed to stem the tide, white southerners, in concert with federal officials who feared the rise of Black nationalism, co-operated in attempting to coerce Black people to stay in the South. The Southern Metal Trades Association urged decisive action to stop Black migration, and some employers undertook serious efforts against it.[64][65]
The largest southern steel manufacturer refused to cash checks sent to finance Black migration, efforts were made to restrict bus and train access for Black Americans, agents were stationed in northern cities to report on wage levels, unionization, and the rise of Black nationalism, and newspapers were pressured to divert more coverage to negative aspects of Black life in the North. A series of local and federal directives were put into place with the goal of restricting Black mobility, including local vagrancy ordinances, "work or fight" laws demanding all males either be employed or serve in the army, and conscription orders. Intimidation and beatings were also used to terrorize Black people into staying.[64][65] These intimidation tactics were described by Secretary of Labor William B. Wilson as interfering with "the natural right of workers to move from place to place at their own discretion".[66]
During the wave of migration that took place in the 1940s, white southerners were less concerned, as mechanization of agriculture in the late 1930s had resulted in another labor surplus so southern planters put up less resistance.[64]
Black Americans were not the only group to leave the South for Northern industrial opportunities. Large numbers of poor whites from Appalachia and the Upland South made the journey to the Midwest and Northeast after World War II, a phenomenon known as the Hillbilly Highway.[67]
In popular culture
The Great Migration is a backdrop of the 2013 film The Butler, as the Forest Whitaker character Cecil Gaines moves from a plantation in Georgia to become a butler at the White House.[68] The Great Migration also served as part of August Wilson’s inspiration for The Piano Lesson.[69]
Statistics
African Americans as a Percentage of the Total Population By U.S. Region (1900–1980)[70][71][72]
Region
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
Change in the Black Percentage of the Total Population Between 1900 and 1980
African Americans as a Percentage of the Population By Large U.S. Cities (Those With a Peak Population of 500,000 or More by 1990) Outside of the Former Confederacy[73][74]
City
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
Change in the Black Percentage of the Total Population Between 1900 and 1990
African Americans as a Percentage of the Population By Large U.S. Cities (Those With a Peak Population of 500,000 or More by 1990) Inside the Former Confederacy[73][74]
City
1900
1910
1920
1930
1940
1950
1960
1970
1980
1990
Change in the Black Percentage of the Total Population Between 1900 and 1990
A map of the black percentage of the U.S. population by each state/territory in 1900. Black = 35.0+% Brown = 20.0–34.9% Red = 10.0–19.9% Orange = 5.0–9.9% Light orange = 1.0–4.9% Gray = 0.9% or less Magenta = No data available
A map of the black percentage of the U.S. population by each state/territory in 1990. Black = 35.0+% Brown = 20.0–34.9% Red = 10.0–19.9% Orange = 5.0–9.9% Light orange = 1.0–4.9% Gray = 0.9% or less Pink = No data available
A map showing the change in the total Black population (in percent) between 1900 and 1990 by U.S. state. Light purple = Population decline Very light green = Population growth of 0.1–9.9% Light green = Population growth of 10.0–99.9% Green = Population growth of 100.0–999.9% Dark green = Population growth of 1,000.0–9,999.9% Very dark green (or Black) = Population growth of 10,000.0% or more Gray = No data available
After the political and civil gains of the Civil Rights Movement, in the 1970s, migration began to increase again. It moved in a different direction, as Black people who were searching for economic opportunity traveled to new regions of the South.[75][76]
The New Great Migration is not evenly distributed throughout the South. As with the earlier Great Migration, the New Great Migration is primarily directed toward cities and large urban areas, such as Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh, Washington, D.C., Tampa, Virginia Beach, San Antonio, Memphis, Orlando, Nashville, Jacksonville, and so forth. North Carolina's Charlotte metro area in particular, is a hot spot for African-American migrants in the US. Between 1975 and 1980, Charlotte saw a net gain of 2,725 African Americans in the area. This number continued to rise as between 1985 and 1990 as the area had a net gain of 7,497 African Americans, and from 1995 to 2000 the net gain was 23,313 African Americans. This rise in net gain points to Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, and Houston being a growing hot spots for the migrants of The New Great Migration. The percentage of Black Americans who live in the South has been increasing since 1990, and the biggest gains have been in the region's large urban areas, according to census data. The Black population of metro Atlanta more than doubled between 1990 and 2020, surpassing 2 million in the most recent census. The Black population also more than doubled in metro Charlotte while Greater Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth both saw their Black populations surpass 1 million for the first time. Several smaller metro areas also saw sizable gains, including San Antonio;[77] Raleigh and Greensboro, N.C.; and Orlando.[78] Primary destinations are states that have the most job opportunities, especially Georgia, North Carolina, Maryland, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida and Texas. Other southern states, including Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Alabama and Arkansas, have seen little net growth in the African-American population from return migration.[citation needed]
↑ Gregory, James. "Black Metropolis". America's Great Migrations Projects. University of Washington. Archived from the original on August 14, 2021. Retrieved March 25, 2021. (with excepts from, Gregory, James. The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America, Chapter 4: "Black Metropolis" (University of North Carolina Press, 2005)
1 2 Taeuber, Karl E.; Taeuber, Alma F. (1966), "The Negro Population in the United States", in Davis, John P. (ed.), The American Negro Reference Book, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, p.122
↑ "Lynchings: By State and Race, 1882–1968". University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law. Archived from the original on June 29, 2010. Retrieved July 26, 2010. Statistics provided by the Archives at Tuskegee Institute.
↑ Broussard, Albert S. (Spring 2011). "New Perspectives on Lynching, Race Riots, and Mob Violence". Journal of American Ethnic History. 30 (3): 71–75. doi:10.5406/jamerethnhist.30.3.0071– via EBSCO.
1 2 Chicago Commission on Race Relations. The Negro in Chicago: A Study in Race Relations and a Race Riot in 1919. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1922.
1 2 "Chicago Race Riot of 1919". Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. Archived from the original on August 2, 2017. Retrieved May 20, 2017.
↑ Drake, St. Claire; Cayton, Horace R. (1945). Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. USA: Harcourt, Brace and Company. p.65.
1 2 Gregory, James N. (2009) "The Second Great Migration: An Historical Overview", African American Urban History: The Dynamics of Race, Class, and Gender since World War II, eds. Joe W. Trotter Jr. and Kenneth L. Kusmer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
↑ Marshall, Gordon (1998). "Sharecropping". Encyclopedia.com. Archived from the original on March 17, 2009. Retrieved March 6, 2018..
1 2 3 4 5 Gregory, James N. (2005). The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN978-0807856512.
↑ Katznelson, Ira (2006). When affirmative action was white: an untold history of racial inequality in twentieth-century America ([Norton pbk ed.]ed.). New York: W.W. Norton. ISBN978-0393328516.
1 2 Gibson, Campbell, and Kay Jung. "Historical Census Statistics on Population Totals by Race, 1790 to 1990, and by Hispanic Origin, 1970 to 1990, for Large Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States." U.S. Census Bureau, February 2005.
↑ Hutchinson, George (August 19, 2020). "Harlem Renaissance". Encyclopedia Britannica. Archived from the original on November 17, 2019. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
↑ Gotham, Kevin Fox (2000). "Racialization and the State: The Housing Act of 1934 and the Creation of the Federal Housing Administration". Sociological Perspectives. 43 (2): 291–317. doi:10.2307/1389798. JSTOR1389798. S2CID144457751.
↑ Lemak, Jennifer A. (2008). "Albany, New York and the Great Migration". Afro-Americans in New York Life and History. 32 (1): 47.
↑ Trotter, Joe W., "Reflections on the Great Migration to Western Pennsylvania." Western Pennsylvania History (1995) 78#4: 153–158 onlineArchived March 8, 2021, at the Wayback Machine .
↑ Trotter, Joe W., and Eric Ledell Smith, eds. African Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives (Penn State Press, 2010).
↑ Trotter, "Reflections on the Great Migration to Western Pennsylvania," p. 154.
↑ Black exodus: the great migration from the American South. Harrison, Alferdteen. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 1991. ISBN978-1604738216. OCLC775352334.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
↑ "History". The Renaissance Collaborative. Archived from the original on August 31, 2013. Retrieved August 19, 2013.
↑ Poe, Tracy N. (1999). "The Origins of Soul Food in Black Urban Identity: Chicago, 1915–1947," American Studies International. XXXVII No. 1 (February)
1 2 3 4 Reich, Steven A.: The Great Black Migration: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic
1 2 Anderson, Talmadge and Stewart, James Benjamin: Introduction to African American Studies: Transdisciplinary Approaches and Implications
↑ Elaine), Anderson, Carol (2016). White rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide. New York. ISBN978-1632864123. OCLC945729575.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
DeSantis, Alan D. "Selling the American dream myth to black southerners: The Chicago Defender and the Great Migration of 1915–1919." Western Journal of Communication (1998) 62#4 pp: 474–511. online
Holley, Donald. The Second Great Emancipation: The Mechanical Cotton Picker, Black Migration, and How They Shaped the Modern South (University of Arkansas Press, 2000)
Lemann, Nicholas (1991). The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America. Vintage Press. ISBN0679733477.
Marks, Carole. Farewell – We're Good and Gone: the great Black migration (Indiana Univ Press, 1989)
Reich, Steven A. ed. The Great Black Migration: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic (2014), one-volume abridged version of 2006 three volume set; Topical entries plus primary sources
Rodgers, Lawrence Richard. Canaan Bound: The African-American Great Migration Novel (University of Illinois Press, 1997)
Sernett, Milton (1997). Bound for the Promised Land: African Americans' Religion and the Great Migration. Duke University Press. ISBN0822319934.
A ghetto is a part of a city in which members of a minority group are concentrated, especially as a result of political, social, legal, religious, environmental or economic pressure. Ghettos are often known for being more impoverished than other areas of the city. Versions of such restricted areas have been found across the world, each with their own names, classifications, and groupings of people.
White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They referred to the large-scale migration of people of various European ancestries from racially mixed urban regions to more racially homogeneous suburban or exurban regions. The term has more recently been applied to other migrations by whites, from older, inner suburbs to rural areas, as well as from the American Northeast and Midwest to the milder climate in the Southeast and Southwest. The term 'white flight' has also been used for large-scale post-colonial emigration of whites from Africa, or parts of that continent, driven by levels of violent crime and anti-colonial or anti-white state policies.
The Deep South or the Lower South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the Southern United States. The term was first used to describe the states which were most economically dependent on plantations and slavery, specifically Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, the region suffered economic hardship and was a major site of racial tension during and after the Reconstruction era.
African-American history started with the arrival of Africans to North America in the 16th and 17th centuries. Formerly enslaved Spaniards who had been freed by Francis Drake arrived aboard the Golden Hind at New Albion in California in 1579. The European colonization of the Americas, and the resulting Atlantic slave trade, led to a large-scale transportation of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic; of the roughly 10–12 million Africans who were sold by the Barbary slave trade, either to European slavery or to servitude in the Americas, approximately 388,000 landed in North America. After arriving in various European colonies in North America, the enslaved Africans were sold to white colonists, primarily to work on cash crop plantations. A group of enslaved Africans arrived in the English Virginia Colony in 1619, marking the beginning of slavery in the colonial history of the United States; by 1776, roughly 20% of the British North American population was of African descent, both free and enslaved.
Urban culture is the culture of towns and cities. The defining theme is the presence of a large population in a limited space that follows social norms. This makes it possible for many subcultures close to each other, exposed to social influence without necessarily intruding into the private sphere. Ultimately, urban culture offers for diverse perspectives, more resources in the medical field, both physically and mentally, but it also faces challenges in maintaining social cohesion.
The history of African Americans in Chicago or Black Chicagoans dates back to Jean Baptiste Point du Sable's trading activities in the 1780s. Du Sable, the city's founder, was Haitian of African and French descent. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city's first Black community in the 1840s. By the late 19th century, the first Black person had been elected to office.
The Chicago Freedom Movement, also known as the Chicago open housing movement, was led by Martin Luther King Jr., James Bevel and Al Raby. It was supported by the Chicago-based Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
The Chicago race riot of 1919 was a violent racial conflict between white Americans and black Americans that began on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, on July 27 and ended on August 3, 1919. During the riot, 38 people died. Over the week, injuries attributed to the episodic confrontations stood at 537, two-thirds black and one-third white; and between 1,000 and 2,000 residents, most of them black, lost their homes. Due to its sustained violence and widespread economic impact, it is considered the worst of the scores of riots and civil disturbances across the United States during the "Red Summer" of 1919, so named because of its racial and labor violence. It was also one of the worst riots in the history of Illinois.
In the context of the 20th-century history of the United States, the Second Great Migration was the migration of more than 5 million African Americans from the South to the Northeast, Midwest and West. It began in 1940, through World War II, and lasted until 1970. It was much larger and of a different character than the first Great Migration (1916–1940), where the migrants were mainly rural farmers from the South and only came to the Northeast and Midwest.
Black flight is a term applied to the migration of African Americans from predominantly black or mixed inner-city areas in the United States to suburbs and newly constructed homes on the outer edges of cities. While more attention has been paid to this since the 1990s, the movement of black people to the suburbs has been underway for some time, with nine million people having migrated from 1960 to 2000. Their goals have been similar to those of the white middle class, whose out-migration was called white flight: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments. From 1990 to 2000, the percentage of African Americans who lived in the suburbs increased to a total of 39 percent, rising 5 percentage points in that decade. Most who moved to the suburbs after World War II were middle class.
Ethnic succession theory is a theory in sociology stating that ethnic and racial groups entering a new area may settle in older neighborhoods or urban areas until achieving economic parity with certain economic classes. The concept of succession is well established in "both ecological and economic models of urban residential change." As the newer group becomes economically successful, it moves to a better residential area. With continued immigration, a new ethnic group will settle in the older neighborhood in a similar starting situation. This pattern will continue, creating a succession of groups moving through the neighborhood over time. Ethnic succession has taken place in most major United States cities, but is most well known in New York City, where this process has been observed since the 19th century.
African-American neighborhoods or black neighborhoods are types of ethnic enclaves found in many cities in the United States. Generally, an African American neighborhood is one where the majority of the people who live there are African American. Some of the earliest African-American neighborhoods were in New Orleans, Mobile, Atlanta, and other cities throughout the American South, as well as in New York City. In 1830, there were 14,000 "Free negroes" living in New York City.
The New Great Migration is the demographic change from 1970 to the present, which is a reversal of the previous 60-year trend of black migration within the United States.
Detroit's population began to expand rapidly based on resource extraction from around the Great Lakes region, especially lumber and mineral resources. It entered the period of largest and most rapid growth in the early 20th century and through World War II, with the development of the automotive industry and related heavy industry. Attracting hundreds of thousands of immigrants from southern, central, and eastern Europe and from the Near East, as well as black and white migrants from the Southern United States, the city became a boomtown.
The Chicago Black Renaissance was a creative movement that blossomed out of the Chicago Black Belt on the city's South Side and spanned the 1930s and 1940s before a transformation in art and culture took place in the mid-1950s through the turn of the century. The movement included such famous African-American writers as Richard Wright, Margaret Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Arna Bontemps, and Lorraine Hansberry, as well as musicians Thomas A. Dorsey, Louis Armstrong, Earl Hines and Mahalia Jackson and artists William Edouard Scott, Elizabeth Catlett, Katherine Dunham, Charles Wilbert White, Margaret Burroughs, Charles C. Dawson, Archibald John Motley, Jr., Walter Sanford, and Eldzier Cortor. During the Great Migration, which brought tens of thousands of African-Americans to Chicago's South Side, African-American writers, artists, and community leaders began promoting racial pride and a new Black consciousness, similar to that of the Harlem Renaissance. In contrast to the Harlem Renaissance, historians regard the Chicago Black Renaissance as more radical, and its prominent figures espoused more leftist socio-economic views. It was also notably more inward-looking, evaluating politics and societal undercurrents within the Black community that Harlem Renaissance artists were less likely to explore due to broader collaboration with white benefactors. Ultimately, the Chicago Black Renaissance did not receive the same amount of publicity as the Harlem Renaissance on a national scale, the primary reasons being that the Chicago group participants presented no singularly prominent "face", wealthy patrons were less involved, and New York City—home of Harlem—was the higher profile national publishing center.
The Chicago Defender is a Chicago-based online African-American newspaper. It was founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott and was once considered the "most important" newspaper of its kind. Abbott's newspaper reported and campaigned against Jim Crow-era violence and urged black people in the American South to settle in the north in what became the Great Migration. Abbott worked out an informal distribution system with Pullman porters who surreptitiously took his paper by rail far beyond Chicago, especially to African American readers in the southern United States. Under his nephew and chosen successor, John H. Sengstacke, the paper dealt with racial segregation in the United States, especially in the U.S. military, during World War II. Copies of the paper were passed along in communities, and it is estimated that at its most successful, each copy was read by four to five people.
Black Southerners are African Americans living in the Southern United States, the United States region with the largest black population.
The city of Baltimore, Maryland includes a significant Appalachian population. The Appalachian community has historically been centered in the neighborhoods of Hampden, Pigtown, Remington, Woodberry, Lower Charles Village, Highlandtown, and Druid Hill Park, as well as the Baltimore inner suburbs of Dundalk, Essex, and Middle River. The culture of Baltimore has been profoundly influenced by Appalachian culture, dialect, folk traditions, and music. People of Appalachian heritage may be of any race or religion. Most Appalachian people in Baltimore are white or African-American, though some are Native American or from other ethnic backgrounds. White Appalachian people in Baltimore are typically descendants of early English, Irish, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and Welsh settlers. A migration of White Southerners from Appalachia occurred from the 1920s to the 1960s, alongside a large-scale migration of African-Americans from the Deep South and migration of Native Americans from the Southeast such as the Lumbee and the Cherokee. These out-migrations caused the heritage of Baltimore to be deeply influenced by Appalachian and Southern cultures.
The city of Chicago, Illinois is home to a significant Appalachian population. The Appalachian community has historically been centered in the neighborhood of Uptown. Beginning after World War I, Appalachian people moved to Chicago in droves seeking jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, approximately 3.2 million Appalachian and Southern migrants settled in Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest. Due to immigration restrictions in the 1920s, personnel managers in Chicago encouraged working-class migrants from the Upland South to fill those jobs. The culture of Chicago has been significantly influenced by the culture, music, and politics of Appalachia. The majority of people of Appalachian heritage in Chicago are white or black, though Appalachian people can be of any race, ethnicity, or religion.
The Metro Detroit region of Michigan is home to a significant Appalachian population, one of the largest populations of Urban Appalachians in the United States. The most common state of origin for Appalachian people in Detroit is Kentucky, while many others came from Tennessee, West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, and elsewhere in the Appalachia region. The Appalachian population has historically been centered in the Detroit neighborhoods of Brightmoor, Springwells, Corktown and North Corktown, as well as the Detroit suburbs of Hazel Park, Ypsilanti, Taylor, and Warren. Beginning after World War I, Appalachian people moved to Detroit in large numbers seeking jobs. Between 1940 and 1970, approximately 3.2 million Appalachian and Southern migrants settled in the Midwest, particularly in large cities such as Detroit and Chicago. This massive influx of rural Appalachian people into Northern and Midwestern cities has been called the "Hillbilly Highway". The culture of Metro Detroit has been significantly influenced by the culture, music, and politics of Appalachia. The majority of people of Appalachian heritage in Metro Detroit are Christian and either white or black, though Appalachian people can be of any race, ethnicity, or religion.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
