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The Great Migration

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The Great Migration
What I Already Knew and What I Wanted to Know I selected The Great Migration because I already knew some of the information about it, and I was interested in learning more about it and discovering the reasons behind it. I knew that it was a migration of the African Americans from the South to the North, and that they traveled because of unfair treatment and to try to obtain more rights that they didn’t originally have in the South. This topic interested me because I had some recollection of what had happened during the time period of the Great Migration from learning about it in the past and I wanted to learn more about what had happened during it. I was wondering what the economic and cultural effects of The Great Migration …show more content…

During this period there were droughts, floods, and soil erosion in the South. They were held accountable for their share of the portion of crop, as well as their landlord’s, so many of them had to declare bankruptcy and they suffered financial losses. (“Great Migration: What Caused the Great Migrations” 73). African Americans moved North to escape racial discrimination such as Jim Crow Laws, poor schools, and second-class citizenship (Horton 114). They believed they would be given more rights and economic power in the North, which would have removed racial barriers and helped cause the movement (“Great Migration: What Caused the Great Migrations?” 72). A black newspaper called the Chicago Defender helped with this by convincing black people to migrate North. They viewed the North as a land of freedom and called it “The Promised Land” (“The Great Migration”).
Life in the North for African Americans was still harsh because they still faced racial segregation and were given low paying jobs. Housing was scarce and expensive in the crowded cities, and they had to transition to life in the colder climates (Clavin). The life they had in the North was still better than the life they had in the South though, and the North started to become places to celebrate black life and culture …show more content…

My weakness as a researcher was finding articles that go in depth of a certain aspect of my topic instead of covering the whole topic. I started my project by going over what I already knew, and building on it. I knew that African Americans left for the North for citizenship rights and because of racial discrimination, but I didn’t know about the Jim Crow Laws, or that the Harlem Renaissance were caused by The Great Migration. I managed my time on the project by getting as much done as I

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494 Words | 2 Pages

It has been over fifty years since slavery had ended in the South with the enactment of the 13th amendment, leaving all former slaves and African-Americans free. The Great Migration, which started in the 1910s, was seen by African-Americans as a new hope, a chance to leave what they saw as the restricting rural South to find better opportunities, jobs, and the private life in the North. In 1917, when most of the migrations occurred, ten-year-old Rubie Bond and her parents left Mississippi to travel to Wisconsin. Fifty years later, in “Beloit Bicentennial Oral History Project” (1976), Rubie Bond was interviewed as part of Beloit College Archives’ project to document the history of the Great Migration. In her interview, Bond recollected why her family and many others left the South.

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Pertaining to the rights of African Americans a new south did not appear after the reconstruction. While they were “free” they were often treated harshly and kept in a version of economic slavery by either their former masters or other white people in power. Sharecropping and the crop-lien system often had a negative impact on both the black and white tenants keeping them in debt with the owner. Jim Crow laws, vigilantes and various means of disfranchisement became the normal way of life in the South. It was believed that white people were superior to black people and when they moved up in politics or socially they were harassed and threatened.

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100 Words | 1 Pages

For African-Americans facing opposition from antagonistic whites and Jim Crow laws leaving the South made political, social, and economic sense. The South was adversely affected by the decision of African-Americans leaving the South. There are three ways in which the Southern States were affected by the Great Migration.

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256 Words | 2 Pages

How was life in the North different from life in the South Life in the north was different than the south in multiple ways such as the differences between wages and economy. The different weather And the different kinds of society. The economy between north and south were very different, in the north there were lots of machines which is why there was such a big industrial revolution. But in the south there was more land to be bought and sold. there was a big demand for guns and ammunition to, lots of people needed guns for hunting and protection.

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594 Words | 3 Pages

Although blacks were technically granted freedom in the North by the nineteenth century at the latest, in practice they were only granted restricted amounts of economic and social freedom while their political freedom was nonexistent. Despite their newly acquired freedom blacks in the north were constantly subjected to racial prejudices that undermined any effort to actively participate in the development of the American political system. Out of the six New England states in the North only one of the states, Massachusetts which was more tolerant of blacks at the time, permitted black males to both vote and serve jury duty, indicating that blacks had very little say over their representatives in the North (Doc A ). African American’s ability

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996 Words | 4 Pages

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. How did it have an effect on there families? And how did it change their lives for the better? African Americans faced many trials from the great migration they were forced to move from their homes, they moved from the south to other parts of the country, in 1900s the had set off looking for jobs some we 're looking to get away from the racism many were looking for schools to accept them, but Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, New York and Philadelphia had all experienced a spike in population. For example Detroit had a original population of maybe 6,000 in 1910, but by 1930 this number hit 120,000.

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491 Words | 2 Pages

The landowners took advantage of their tenants by overcharging for land and underpaying for the crops. The tenants began falling deeper into debt. They could not leave until they paid off their debt, which was nearly impossible. Although former slaves had been freed, they were still facing many struggles in free life. America’s plan for reconstruction had good intent, but did not give African Americans the equality they deserved.

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563 Words | 3 Pages

The Civil War is a very brutal war in American History. One nation fought and killed its own people, and over half a million lives were destroyed and even more families were torn apart. The nation was divided because of slavery. In the North, people wanted to abolish slavery and make free states. In the South, people wanted to keep slavery because it was profitable to their economy and generated a 100% profit on all goods sold.

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6 million African Americans moved from the rural South to the cities of the North during The Great Migration. The blacks wanted to escape the oppressive economic conditions in the south and the promise of greater fortune in the north. Some blacks was being paid to migrated from the south to the north for work and their expenses was being paid. The Pennsylvania Railroad paid the travel expenses of 12,000 blacks.

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785 Words | 4 Pages

Although the “free” North abolished slavery, the idea of white supremacy was dominant. ‘“...We are of another race and he is inferior. Let him know his place - and keep it.’” (Doc B) The spread of the abolition of slavery throughout the United States began in 1777 through 1865 and sparked the limits of determining a black person’s freedom.

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941 Words | 4 Pages

It’s the migration that with the largest amount of movement among the United States and it’s the most recent movement where the narratives of people during that time have been collected. What makes it even more great is the fact that this migration didn’t happen long ago and that it has technically inspired the Modern Migration that is happening now, as the relatives of those who’ve moved from the South to Northern and Western areas are now moving right back down to the

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1057 Words | 5 Pages

Although the life in the North was better, it was not ideal. During the emigration often African Americans encountered several kinds of discrimination, both the owners and sellers of houses prevented African-Americans to buy a house close to neighborhoods inhabited by whites. Moreover, when blacks moved

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703 Words | 3 Pages

The Great Migration was a time of change it was a time where African-Americans had the chance for a nice life. During this time people of color were moving to the northern half of the USA, in order to get a new start. During this they had to leave the only life they knew in hopes for something better in a different place. To begin with, after World War 1 began in 1914 industries lacked the laborers in their urban cities.

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812 Words | 4 Pages

Between that time, African American Families moved from the South to the North and to the West. Following the Civil War, many African Americans had packed up and migrated to urbanized areas like Chicago and New York. By 1920, almost 300,000 African Americans had moved away from the south, Harlem being a very popular destination for the traveling families. New arrivals found jobs in slaughterhouses, factories and foundries, but working conditions were strenuous to their bodies and sometimes dangerous. Many didn 't consider the amounts of people that would be migrating to New York and that made competition for living space harder.

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108 Words | 1 Pages

Between 1910 and 1930, African Americans migrated from the rural South to the urban North in search of better economic opportunities and as a means of escaping the racism of the South, but they were disillusioned with what they encountered. To begin, African Americans still experienced racism—segregation, profiling, and unjust law enforcement—In the North, though it was more subtle. As a result, blacks were forced into lower-paying jobs than whites. Thus, while the northern white, middle-class population grew wealthier during the post-WWI economic boom and were moving to the suburbs, blacks and other poor, working-class groups were left in the cities, the state of which grew progressively

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