Causes Of The Great Migration

From the 1930s to the 1950s, African Americans were being severely persecuted and ostracized. The Jim Crow Laws allowed for legal segregation and continued control over blacks in the South. Those laws severely restricted the rights of the African American in the southern half of the United States and essentially continued to restrain them even though the United States Constitution forbid it. The North did not have such laws, but blacks still suffered. When African Americans migrated to the North, they were disillusioned by the fact that they were still not equal. The African Americans were instead delivered a subtler form of the discriminatory actions within the South. African Americans struggled for equality everywhere because of white

The Great Migration was a massive movement of African Americans from the South to the North from 1863 to 1960. The largest spike in this migration occurred from about 1910 to 1920.

many votes as well, which quickened the the pace of civil rights and changed the political landscape (Segregation in the United States 10). The blacks migrating to the North did not have all positive results though. Most of the blacks looking for jobs were under-qualified, leaving only such jobs as laborers or servants open, which was much

African Americans participated in the Great migration because they were terrorized and looked down upon in the South. They were lynched, housing situations were terrible, there were no jobs or education accessible to them. Economic inequality was a huge issue, African Americans worked unfair labor practices which made it easy when jobs became available in the North. Floods in Alabama and Mississippi pushed African Americans out of the area, as well as the impact that the boll weevil had on the crops, it took out cotton, the key cash crop (pg. 46-47). The segregation laws in the South were redundant and they led to a great deal of mob violence, particularly in Georgia and South Carolina (pg. 52).

The South was a complete mess after the Civil War. The early part of the 20th century brought many changes for African Americans. There was a difficult challenge of helping newly free African American slaves assimilate among their white counterparts. They suffered from crop failures, economic hardships, and the early failures of Reconstruction in the south. So as result many Southern African Americans migrated to northern cities in search of employment and a chance at a better life. However, Southern African Americans migrating to northern cities quickly discovered that they were not able to enjoy the same social and economic mobility experienced by their European immigrant counterparts arriving around the same time. There were many

From the early 1900s – 1920s the Great Black Migration occurred. In addition, the Great Migration occurred in the early 1900s and ended shortly after the Great War. The Great Black Migration was a time where blacks left the south to seek a better lifestyle in the Midwestern, Northern, and Eastern states. Blacks fled the South to seek better jobs, escape racism and discrimination, and to look for better schooling for their children. The Great Black Migration mostly occurred in the states of Illinois, Missouri, New York, and California. During the Great Migration, more than 100,000 blacks migrated to Harlem, New York. In Chicago and New York City, blacks were empowered by black-owned businesses, newspapers, and communities. Newspaper

Reconstruction did not help African Americans move closer to the American Dream. Even though there were positives, there were also negatives. Due to Reconstruction, hate groups started, there was not any safety for African Americans, and the Black Codes or Jim Crow laws. One of the most infamous hate groups to rise was the Klu Klux Klan. KKK for short. African Americans were terrorized by this group. They are responsible for many hangings, burnings, and other horrors that were inflicted upon African Americans. Also, there was not any safety from the groups. It was not like being in the center of a city was going to help. There are unfortunately many pictures of African Americans being hanged in very populated areas. Also, there was the rise of Black Codes(Jim Crow laws). It is like how the saying goes, out of the frying pan and into the fire. Some of the codes, but not limited to, was the Grandfather clause, which basically said that if your grandfather could not vote, you cannot vote. There were also many other ways that African Americans were restricted from voting. There was poll tax, and unfair evaluations of voting tests. This also included segregation of schools (separate but equal). There was even a law forbidding a white person from marrying a black person. However, even though all of these horrific things came because the end of slavery,

The Great Migration seemed to begin again after a short period of time during the Great Depression. The price of crops fell dramatically during the Great Depression, causing African Americans to leave the South, mostly to the western United States this time, though some still traveled to northern cities. They moved to western cities, particularly in California, for more economic opportunity since the need for farmers had declined thanks to government plans to help stop the Great Depression. Jim Crow Laws were still enforced in the South and African Americans continued to leave to find better race relations. “Although lynching had greatly diminished by 1935 - there were eighteen lynchings that year - violence was still prevalent in the South. People were threatened, beaten, fired from their jobs, and publicly humiliated.” African Americans had to flee from the South and from the violence that was attributed to the region. Another reason for this second Great Migration was because of World War II. Many industries would switch to making wartime goods which called for extra labor. Men would go off to fight, and women and African Americans would be able to fill the job left behind. Family members and newspapers also added to the new movement. Letters would be sent back to families still in the South and explain how much better it was and the economic opportunity. Some newspapers would urge African Americans to move from the South for better relations in regards to race, and for

Without The Great Migration, or the migration of African Americans from 1915 to 1970 from the south to the north, the north would have suffered economically (Wilkerson 8). Specifically, without the Great Migration, the north would have faced extensive job shortages, that would have eventually led to economic turmoil. One cause of The Great Migration was the need for southern African Americans to take industrial jobs in the north. Furthermore, during times of war, many men were removed from the workforce, meaning that the north needed additional workers to fill the now vacated spots. (The Great) The north needed the southern African Americans in order to fill these slots, and without them, the north’s economy would have suffered

Even though africans americans did not have jobs before the war, their economic situation still changed very little. This was because of a system called sharecropping. Sharecropping was where southern plantation owners would hire African Americans (often their former slaves) and give them pay to work the land. The workers would accept the pay and then the plantation owner says well you need this, this, and this to harvest or plant the crop, then the plantation owner says, “Well i have those things but to use them I’ll take a little bit out of our salary”. The owners did this with everything from tools to food to housing so that eventually the worker was actually in debt to the plantation owner. This then made it so that the worker had no way to leave the plantation and were essentially stuck there almost as if they were still slaves. And sadly this was probably the preferable route for African Americans because the other option was to be homeless. All industrial and white collar jobs were given immediately to white people. Even in the north it was extremely difficult for African Americans to find a steady job that could support a family. Due to this embarrassing amount of economic gains African Americans did not make great strides economically for over 50

After the post-Civil War reconstruction era in 1879, white supremacy was at an all-time high. There was economic deprivation as the boll weevil and flooding exterminated cash crops like cotton, resulting in poor crop yields and an uncertain economy(Clark); threats from the supposedly subdued Ku Klux Klan, the need for better jobs, and segregation due to the Jim Crow Laws were some reasons why African Americans decided to flee the South. By 1919, one million African Americans had left the South by train, boat, bus, cars, and even horse drawn carts (Great Migration). This massive migration with little space in the North led the African Americans to make their own city with their own cultures.

The Great Migration was the mass movement of millions of African Americans to the Northeast, Midwest, and West around 1910 to1930. African Americans moved away from the South to escape segregation and violence in search of better opportunities. With the U.S. entering into World War I and troops being sent overseas, more job opportunities opened up for African Americans. Blacks enjoyed the unsegregated cities and the benefits that came along with it like better jobs, schools, and homes. African Americans also got more involved in politics and became an important constituency in the North because they were not prevented from voting and some even ran for political offices.

Many African American’s stayed in the south or in a sense, got stuck. Lack of money, help and education would keep many in the same place as they were throughout the 1800’s. Many didn’t have the means to escape Jim Crow and the south. They simply didn’t have the means or assets to go anywhere. To some, considered the “first migration,” roughly a million African American’s are going to leave the south for economic opportunities in the north at the start of World War I.

African Americans moved from southern farms to the North. In the North, they lived in segregated neighborhoods, faced violence, and were given the worst jobs. Conditions in the South were even worse, because state laws deprived them of civil rights and segregated them from whites (Schultz, 2014).

The many social issues blacks faced in the south prepared them for what they would be facing in the north. Blacks coming from a back ground of slavery continued to following them through the many years of the migration. The Great Migration brought about so many social challenges because for centuries blacks were treated like animals. They were not able to find their niche in an economy that was not created for them. Social issues such as Jim Crow laws, racism, discrimination, prejudice, and other issues that effect a certain population of people, all played a