Great Migration

1. Great Migration • Section 3

2. Podcast 1 • Lecture to cover some of the material BEFORE class so we can focus more on talking about teaching • Increase Discussion/Sharing/Teaching Moments • We will pick up this material this wee

3. Great Migration • The years between 1910 and 1920 marked the beginning of a major shift of the African-American population within the United States. • The nation's African-American population shifted away from underdeveloped rural areas in the South to industrial centers in the cities, particularly in the North and the West. • It has been estimated that somewhere around a million African American men, women and children left the South before, during, and shortly after the first World War, settling in urban areas such as New York, Chicago, Detroit and other areas in the North and Midwest. • For example, Chicago's African-American population increased from 44,000 to 110,000 during this period.

4. Great Migration • Like all migrations there are “push” and “pull” factors that drive this movement: • Push: • the decline of cotton production; • flooding in rural areas of the South; • an increase in the number of lynchings and other forms of racial violence and discrimination • NB: Contemporaneous limiting of foreign immigration and “re”-rise of KKK • The North was perceived as a place where racism was muted and where African-Americans could find economic success and more social equality.

5. Great Migration • Pull Factors: • the influence of black newspapers in the North • recruitment of African-Americans by northern industries • The North was perceived as a place where racism was muted and where African-Americans could find economic success and more social equality.

6. Push Factors • Prior to the migration, hundreds of thousands of African American men and women living in the South were engaged in some form of agricultural production -- either as tenant-farmers or sharecroppers. • The years between 1914 and 1917 marked a sharp decline in southern agricultural production due to natural phenomena. • the invasion of the boll weevil from Mexico which ravished cotton crops throughout the black belt. • The flooding which occurred in the summer of 1915 took thousands of acres out of production while leaving black farmers and their families destitute and homeless throughout the region. • Because of these conditions in agriculture, the South experienced a severe labor depression with wages dwindling to 75 cents per day and less.

7. Push Factors • African-Americans experienced a number of affronts and outrages living in the South. • African-Americans were forced to contend with various forms racism and discrimination on a daily basis, including segregation, disfranchisement, a lack of privileges, and an indifferent legal system. • To assure that African Americans "stayed in their place" and would not openly protest these conditions, some white Southerners routinely used various forms of lynching. • Between 1889 and 1922, mobs lynched more than 3,436 American citizens (mostly African-Americans).

8. Pull Factors • But, while the South was experiencing a labor depression and a decline in production, northern industries were experiencing a record-breaking increase in production and ironically, a labor shortage. • The fighting of World War I in Europe had a positive and negative effect on northern industries in the United States. • While the war prompted increased demand for products made by northern industries, it also had a negative effect on the northern labor supply. • Since the turn-of-the-century, northern industries had depended on immigrants as the dominant portion of their labor force, but once hostilities broke out in Europe, immigration to the United States sharply declined from more than 1 million in 1914 to slightly more than 300,000 in the following year • Also contributing to the northern labor shortage was an increase in the number of labor strikes throughout the region, deriving from organized labor demands for higher wages and better working conditions.

9. Pull Factors • Due to these factors, northern industrialists went South to recruit displaced and unemployed black and white workers to replace immigrant workers and to serve as strikebreakers ' • Because of the decline in agriculture and the incentives offered by northern recruiters, such as free train tickets and higher wages, southern African-Americans moved North in hopes of a better economic life. • As a response to the dreadful social conditions, African-American owned and operated newspapers in the North initiated editorial campaigns to convince southern African-American to relocate in northern cities. • These newspapers, such as the Chicago Defender and the Christian Recorder, portrayed the North in Biblical terms, commonly referring to it as "The Promise Land" or "The Land Were Streets Are Paved With Gold." • In 1917, an editorial in the Chicago Defender stated, "to die from the bite from frost is far more glorious than at the hands of a mob.".

10. Great Migration • The rural to urban migration of African-Americans during the first few decades of the twentieth century signified the beginning of many changes in African-American life. • But, it is important to remember that events such as this one do not exist in vacuum, they have an effect on everyone living within the nation. Many of the political, social, educational, economic, and cultural changes of the twentieth century can be traced back to this monumental episode in our history. • The point is, even though many refer to the "Great Migration" as an aspect of the African-American historical past, in reality, it is a part of all of our past regardless of race.