Great Migration
Historic population movement
The Great Migration refers to the movement of approximately six million Black Americans from the rural South to cities in the North, Midwest, and West between roughly 1910 and 1970.
Driven by Jim Crow oppression, lack of economic opportunity, and racial violence, this demographic shift transformed American culture, politics, and urban life.
A separate Great Migration describes the Puritan exodus from England to New England in the 1630s.
Black arts explosion, 1920s
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- segregationForced separation by group
- sharecroppingFarm rent in produce
- NAACPCivil rights advocacy organization
Delta · Chicago · Detroit · Philadelphia · New York · race riots · voting rights · lynching
Major Illinois metropolis
- DetroitMichigan automotive hub
- PhiladelphiaPennsylvania's largest metropolis
- New YorkNortheastern metropolis and state
- ClevelandNortheast Ohio metropolis
Pittsburgh · Los Angeles · Oakland · Harlem · South Side · tenement · factories · stockyards
Improvisational American music genre
- bluesMournful American music genre
- gospelSacred choral tradition
- South SideCity's lower district
- bebopFast, complex jazz style
Langston Hughes · Zora Neale Hurston · nightclubs · rent parties · literature · poetry · art · cultural renaissance
Harlem Renaissance
Black arts explosion, 1920s
- Jim CrowRacial separation laws
- segregationForced separation by group
- sharecroppingFarm rent in produce
NAACP · Delta · Chicago · Detroit · Philadelphia · New York · race riots · voting rights · lynching · southern states
Chicago
Major Illinois metropolis
- DetroitMichigan automotive hub
- PhiladelphiaPennsylvania's largest metropolis
- New YorkNortheastern metropolis and state
Cleveland · Pittsburgh · Los Angeles · Oakland · Harlem · South Side · tenement · factories · stockyards · steel mills
jazz
Improvisational American music genre
- bluesMournful American music genre
- gospelSacred choral tradition
- South SideCity's lower district
Langston Hughes · Zora Neale Hurston · bebop · nightclubs · rent parties · literature · poetry · art · cultural renaissance · community building
- Great MigrationChicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, New York, Cleveland
- Black HistoryMartin Luther King Jr., MLK, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass
- US HistoryAmerican Revolution, US history, Civil War, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln
- Chicagothe Loop, Chicago, Chicago River, Lake Michigan, Wrigley Field
- Early 1900sroaring twenties, flapper, jazz, speakeasy, prohibition
- Black ChicagoSouth Side, Ida B. Wells, Black Belt
Great Migrationstaying put
Remaining in place
rootedness · immobility · staying home · sedentarism · stasis
Great MigrationAtlantic slave trade
Forced transatlantic human cargo enterprise
Middle Passage · Trail of Tears · enslavement · chattel slavery · forced migration
Great Migrationwhite flight
Demographic shift toward segregated areas
rural exodus · diaspora · displacement · dispersion · scattering
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