From 1916-1970 in US history there was a Great Migration. This migration was the widespread movement of around six million African Americans from rural towns in Southern states to the industrial cities of Northern and Western states. In the beginning of the 20th century, about 90% of blacks lived in the South.
The immigration reform in the 1920s led to an opportunity Southern African Americans. As the large amounts of Europeans immigrating slowed to a trickle, tons of industrial jobs in Northern states that would have been filled by those European migrants were open for the taking and the large black population in the South pounced. |
The push to leave the South for African Americans was due to the horrible economic conditions and the terrible racial oppression of the South, including lynching, an unfair legal system, inequality in education, and denial of suffrage. Blacks were constrained in their economic achievement by sharecropping and agricultural failures. As well as facing horrible oppression caused by the Jim Crow laws. While these were strong push factors there were also factors pulling the African Americans to the North. The report of better living conditions and wages spread like wildfire. Advertisements for jobs and housing opportunities were being put in African American newspapers as well as personal stories of success. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York City, all had massive influxes in black population as the migrants came in search of this reported better life, and by 1970 the black population in the south went down to 53%.
With optimism in the air, African Americans left the South in search of escaping the horrible oppression and economic state of the South. Yet they were not able to escape the horrible grips of racism by migrating North. In the North, African Americans faced obstacles of their new urban lives. They were segregated into ghettos and even faced racism from Northern blacks because they did not approve of the "country" style in which they held themselves.
With optimism in the air, African Americans left the South in search of escaping the horrible oppression and economic state of the South. Yet they were not able to escape the horrible grips of racism by migrating North. In the North, African Americans faced obstacles of their new urban lives. They were segregated into ghettos and even faced racism from Northern blacks because they did not approve of the "country" style in which they held themselves.
Sources
Kopf, Dan. “The Great Migration: The African American Exodus from The South.”Priceonomics, None, 28 Jan. 2016, priceonomics.com/the-great-migration-the-african-american-exodus/.
Wilkerson, Isabel. “Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North.” NPR, NPR, 13 Sept. 2010, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129827444.
Wilkerson, Isabel. “Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North.” NPR, NPR, 13 Sept. 2010, www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129827444.