The Great Migration Essay

The Great Migration was one of the largest movements of people in United States history and occurred between 1914 to 1940. It was the mass migration of African Americans from the South to the North and West. It was a dramatic redistribution of African Americans across the US, specifically in cities such as New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Pittsburgh. African Americans fled the South due to new jobs offered in Northern and Western states due to war and in hopes of escaping segregation. (National Archives) Some may argue that due to the migration of African Americans to the North, many managed to escape the extreme segregation and limited economic opportunity they endured in the South, but this is untrue. In the North, migrated African Americans

(Marks 155) While it’s true that the North offered quite a few financial opportunities for African Americans compared to the South, many of these advertisements would end up being misleading. Whites made restrictions to make getting a job harder, and it must be noted that immigrants and native-born whites were often situated above blacks in the occupational queue. (Tolnay 221 & 222) The jobs these African American migrants were usually placed in were unskilled or semiskilled jobs that were unwanted by the whites and furthered segregation in the North. Even when African Americans managed to receive the same job as white people, they were paid less. This was the case for many skilled black artisans who would still get low pay simply because of their skin color. (Marks 155) As if this wasn’t enough of a struggle for these African American migrants, Northern whites intensified their efforts to restrict the residential and occupational opportunities available to African Americans after 1920 as more southern migrants arrived in the North. (Tolnay 221) Despite all these new opportunities offered in the North and West, migrated African Americans were still facing segregation and economic struggles and as the black population grew,

For example, many African Americans who migrated to Harlem, New York had to pay the majority of their income for rent due to the discrimination of whites who were reluctant to or even refused to allow African Americans to rent homes. (DuBose-Simons 547) Prices and the poor conditions of the homes only began to increase as more migrants began to move into the cities, and finding a home became more difficult. As these living conditions continued to rapidly decrease, Harlem’s mortality rate for African Americans began to increase. The Impact of the Great Migration on Mortality of African Americans claims that their data suggests that migrating North increased age-specific mortality by about half for women and somewhat less than half for men. (Black 496) The high rents landlords charged coupled with the low wages blacks earned only furthered the migrated African Americans' economic hardship, similar to the