Who started the Great Migration?
The Great Migration was the movement of some six million African Americans from rural areas of the Southern states of the United States to urban areas in the Northern states between 1916 and 1970. It occurred in two waves, basically before and after the Great Depression. At the beginning of the 20th century, 90 percent of black Americans lived in the South.
What was the Great Migration and why do we care?
What Was the Great Migration and Why Do We Care? Between about 1630 and 1640, as many as 20,000 men, women and children left England for New England. Most if not all of the settlers of Lenox can trace their roots to this hearty group of emigrants.
What were the reasons for the Great Migration?
Where should I move in the US?
- Hilo, Hawaii. Perfect for: Healthy living.
- Atlanta, Georgia. Perfect for: Singles.
- Franklin, Tennessee. Perfect for: Music lovers.
- Fort Myers, Florida. Perfect for: Beach goers.
- New York City, New York. Perfect for: Big city culture.
- Dallas, Texas. Perfect for: Career climbers.
- Phoenix, Arizona.
- Oceanside, California.
What best explains the Great Migration?
The term Great Migration is used to describe the mass movement of southern blacks that occurred in the early 20th century as they moved to which area? people migrated from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt to find jobs.

What was the First and Second Great Migration?
About 4.3 million African Americans migrated out of the southern United States between 1940 and 1970, an exodus known as the Second Great Migration. The first Great Migration occurred when African Americans moved north in the first decades of the 1900s.
Where did the Great Migration begin and end?
The Great Migration was the relocation of more than 6 million African Americans from the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest and West from about 1916 to 1970.
What did the first Great Migration result in?
The Great Migration resulted in the Harlem Renaissance, which was also fueled by immigrants from the Caribbean, and the Chicago Black Renaissance.
When did the Great Migration start?
1916 – 1970Great Migration / Period
When was the Second Great Migration?
1940-1970The Second Great Migration (1940-1970) is considered by some historians as, essentially, the sequel to its predecessor, the Great Migration (1910-1930).
Where does the Great Migration start?
Where and when does the Great Migration occur? The Migration generally occurs between May and December in a circuit format between the plains of the Serengeti in Tanzania (the south) and the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya (the north).
Why did the first Great Migration happen?
Jim Crow laws kept them in an inferior position relative to white people, and they were denied political rights. There were more jobs available in the North, and, though racism was rampant, racial segregation was not mandated there. They embarked on the Great Migration seeking economic and social opportunity.
What was the importance of the Great Migration?
The Great Migration fueled an important shift in the demographic center and the role of African Americans in the United States. This shift to northern cities continued beyond 1930, with a larger surge in the years after World War II (1939–1945).
What was one result of the great migration that occurred between 1914 and 1920?
Great Migration Causes: The number of white workers drafted in World War One, and the halt of immigration from Europe, led to a need for additional labor in factories and industries in the north.
What influenced the Great Migration?
What are the push-and-pull factors that caused the Great Migration? Economic exploitation, social terror and political disenfranchisement were the push factors. The political push factors being Jim Crow, and in particular, disenfranchisement.
What was the great migration quizlet?
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African-Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1916 and 1970.
What was the Great Migration?
The Great Migration was the movement of some six million African Americans from rural areas of the Southern states of the United States to urban ar...
Why did many African Americans participate in the Great Migration?
Many African Americans in the South found themselves trapped in sharecropping jobs and other forms of debt peonage with no hope of improvement in t...
How did the Great Migration affect African American culture?
The greater economic and educational opportunities led to an explosion of artistic expression in music and literature. Migrants and their children...
What were African Americans able to do in the North?
In the North, African Americans were able to take advantage of the public schools, decent jobs, social life, and access to the ballot. However, life in the North was challenging.
What were the opportunities for African Americans to escape Jim Crow?
Employment in the North provided opportunities for millions of southern Blacks to escape Jim Crow, racial oppression, and lynchings. Many southern African American migrants followed the rail lines and settled in major cities that included Philadelphia, New York, Detroit, Cincinnati, Chicago, and Milwaukee. In the North, African Americans were able ...
What was the Great Migration?
The Great Migration (1910-1970) The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of people in United States history. Approximately six million Black people moved from the American South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states roughly from the 1910s until the 1970s. The driving force behind the mass movement was to escape racial violence, ...
Where did the Blacks migrate?
The First Great Migration (1910-1940) had Black southerners relocate to northern and midwestern cities including: New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. When the war effort ramped up in 1917, more able bodied men were sent off to Europe to fight leaving their industrial jobs vacant.
How many black people migrated to the US during WW2?
Within twenty years of World War II, a further 3 million Black people migrated throughout the United States. Black people who migrated during the second phase of the Great Migration were met with housing discrimination, as localities had started to implement restrictive covenants and redlining, which created segregated neighborhoods, ...
What was the main reason for the mass movement?
The driving force behind the mass movement was to escape racial violence, pursue economic and educational opportunities, and obtain freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow. The Great Migration is often broken into two phases, coinciding with the participation and effects of the United States in both World Wars.
Why did the Red Summer of 1919 happen?
The Red Summer of 1919 was rooted in tensions and prejudice that arose from white people having to adjust to the demographic changes in their local communities. From World War I until World War II, it is estimated that about 2 million Black people left the South for other parts of the country.
What was the Great Migration?
history, the widespread migration of African Americans in the 20th century from rural communities in the South to large cities in the North and West. At the turn of the 20th century, the vast majority of black Americans lived in the Southern states. From 1916 to 1970, during this Great Migration, ...
When did the Great Migration happen?
It occurred in two waves, basically before and after the Great Depression. At the beginning of the 20th century, 90 percent of black Americans lived in ...
What did African Americans in the South find themselves trapped in?
Many African Americans in the South found themselves trapped in sharecropping jobs and other forms of debt peonage with no hope of improvement in their circumstances. Jim Crow laws kept them in an inferior position relative to white people, and they were denied political rights.
What was the major population shift during the Great Depression?
A huge internal population shift among African Americans addressed these shortfalls, particularly during the World Wars, when defense industries required more unskilled labour. Although the Great Migration slowed during the Great Depression, it surged again after World War II, when rates of migration were high for several decades.
How many black people moved to Chicago during the Great Migration?
From 1916 to 1970, during this Great Migration, it is estimated that some six million black Southerners relocated to urban areas in the North and West. African American family from the rural South arriving in Chicago, 1920.
What cities absorbed large numbers of migrants?
In addition to Chicago, other cities that absorbed large numbers of migrants include Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; and New York City.
What was the cause of the Civil Rights Movement?
The Great Migration arguably was a factor leading to the American civil rights movement. The massive stream of European emigration to the United States, which had begun in the late 19th century and waned during World War I, slowed to a trickle with immigration reform in the 1920s.
What were the economic motivations for migration?
The economic motivations for migration were a combination of the desire to escape oppressive economic conditions in the south and the promise of greater prosperity in the north. Since their Emancipation from slavery, southern rural blacks had suffered in a plantation economy that offered little chance of advancement.
How many black people were in the Great Migration?
Public Domain Image, Courtesy New York Public Library (1168439) The Great Migration was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960.
Where did the blacks migrate?
During the initial wave the majority of migrants moved to major northern cities such as Chicago, Illiniois, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York, New York . By World War II the migrants continued to move North but many of them headed west to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.
When did the first blacks move north?
The first large movement of blacks occurred during World War I , when 454,000 black southerners moved north. In the 1920s, another 800,000 blacks left the south, followed by 398,000 blacks in the 1930s. Between 1940 and 1960 over 3,348,000 blacks left the south for northern and western cities. The economic motivations for migration were ...
Why did black people migrate north?
In additional to migrating for job opportunities, blacks also moved north in order to escape the oppressive conditions of the south. Some of the main social factors for migration included lynching, an unfair legal system, inequality in education, and denial of suffrage.
What was the Great Migration?
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.
When did the Great Migration happen?
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 that occurred between 1916 and 1970.
What was the impact of the Great Migration on African Americans?
After moving from the racist pressures of the south to the northern states, African Americans were inspired to different kinds of creativity. The Great Migration resulted in the Harlem Renaissance, which was also fueled by immigrants from the Caribbean. 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."
How many people lived in Chicago in 1900?
In 1900–01, Chicago had a total population of 1,754,473. 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.
What cities were the main destinations of the southerners during the Great Migration?
In the first phase, eight major cities attracted two-thirds of the migrants: New York and Chicago, followed in order by Philadelphia, St. Louis, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Pittsburgh, and Indianapolis.
How did the Great Migration affect the South?
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. In 1910, African Americans constituted the majority of the population of South Carolina and Mississippi, and more than 40 percent in Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas; by 1970, only in Mississippi did the African-American population constitute more than 30 percent of the state's total. "The disappearance of the 'black belt' was one of the striking effects" of the Great Migration, James Gregory wrote.
How did the Great Depression affect migration?
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.
