The Great Migration
Jessica Winchel
About the Great Migration:
- In other words the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the South to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West.
- From 1916 to 1970
- African Americans were driven from their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and segregationist laws.
- Many headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers.
- As for other cities that seen there African American population expand, migrants were forced to deal with poor working conditions and competition for living space, as well as racism.
- During the Migration, African Americans began to build a new place for themselves in the public life. Always confronting economic, political and social challenges and creating a new black influence that would stay in the decades to come.
Continued...
- The first large movement of blacks occurred during World War I, was when 454,000 black southerners moved north.
- In the 1920s', another 800,000 blacks left the south followed by 398,000 black in the 1930s'
- Between 1940 and 1960 over 3,348,000 blacks left the south for northern and western cities.
Up South: African-American Migration in the Era of the Great War