Research Paper: The Great Migration

This essay discusses black people in the 1900s and their thoughts on The Great Migration. Slaves had just been emancipated, however 64 years later the struggle for survival didn’t get any easier for them. Blacks in the south was drowning, and barely maintaining. Blacks in the north however, were doing more decent then people in the south. It was easier for northerner to get a job and afford education, southerners on the other hand could not, and in fact they work more in fight to live than survive. Some believe that moving to the north would provide a better life for blacks, while others oppose. These differences were put forth by R. Taylor, Reverend I.N. Fitzpatrick, and E.W. Cooke. They were each just regular citizens of the different communities

They were now free from slavery, but were homeless. Some brutally lost their lives because black voices were prohibited in the south. Regardless of the ruthless and dehumanizing conditions of the south, many blacks opposed to moving to the north. E.W. Cooke wrote a letter to The Montgomery Advertiser, he oppose to blacks moving to the north. Cooke protest that blacks were not ready for the north, he felt they were incapable to be on the level of northerners because they were better educated than people in the south. He says that “They are accuracy of work, quickness of work and continuation of work. The average unlearned Negro works down here about eight months in the year and uses the other four for what he calls a good time, and then at the end of the year holds that the white man has changed his account.” (Cooke, E.W. p.253)

Cooke doubts the ability of blacks to learn and work. Negros in that time were willing to do anything to survive. A 17 year old girl wrote a letter to a newspaper editor, protesting she simply just wanted to work so she can go back to school. E.W. Cooke wanted blacks to settle with being inferior to white. His letters implies that whites are god, “their stronger, they know the way and can lead us, I know their wrong but it’s some good in them somewhere”. He fail to recognize the fear these people had for their lives and their