The Great Migration In The 1950's

The 1950’s was the decade of change, and boom. Everything from housing, the economy, and let’s not forget music. The Great Migration is where it all started. Due to the Great Migration African Americans had a hard time being accepted Whites.

After to World War 1 broke out in 1914, industrial workers became scarce in the North, Midwest, and West. Traveling by boat, bus, or trains, immigrants came for Europe, Japan, China, Africa, and all over the United States in search for a job and a better life from themselves and their families. This was called the Great Migration. More than 1 million African Americans came to the North, Midwest, and Western cities, leaving the rural South in hope for a better life during 1910 to 1920. Many jobs became available such as industrial workers, slaughterhouses, and factories with horrible working conditions (History). African Americans would not earn as much pay as whites. With the population growing in the cities of northern America, housing was also another big issue. As a result of racism and prejudice, some property and landowners would not sell to African American families.

When the African Americans came to

Black children had to take buses miles away to different schools, even though there were schools walking distances away. In 1954, Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka was a Supreme Court case that fought for the right for African American children and white children to go to high school and colleges together. This case overturned the case of Plessy vs. Ferguson from 1896, which fought for African Americans having their own things and whites having their own things, such as schools, churches, water fountains, buses, and housing. Declaring that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal,” the Brown v. Board decision helped break the back of state-sponsored segregation, and provided a spark to the American civil rights movement