Great Migration

Great Migration dates in America

The Great Migration does not have set dates, but it began around 1915 and continued well into the 1960s. Some say even until 1970.

The two waves were:

• 1915-40: around 1.6 million African-Americans moved away from the rural South to industrial areas.
• 1940-c1970: around 5 million African-Americans moved to the North, West, and Midwest. This second wave of migrations is mainly attributed to the Second World War.

The push factors of the Great Black Migration

The Great Black Migration was not in response to a specific instance of persecution but rather centuries of oppression. Let’s look at this historical context to really understand the causes of the Great Migration.

The American Civil War

The American Civil War (1861–65) was a conflict between the Union (North) and the Confederacy, formed of 11 southern states. Although the war was not initially motivated by the issue of slavery, this soon became the basis on which the war was fought, with the Union fighting for its abolition and the Confederacy desperately fighting to maintain it.

Chattel slavery was the backbone of the Southern agriculture-based economy, so their fight was motivated by economic survival as well as racism.

In 1864, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which effectively freed all slaves in Confederate states. In 1865, after the South lost the war, slavery was officially abolished with the Thirteenth Amendment.

Reluctantly, the Southern states adhered to the abolishment of slavery but found ways to get around this and continue to subjugate Black Americans.

Reconstruction and discrimination

After the Civil War, the US entered a period of Reconstruction, which attempted to reform Southern states and offered African Americans many civil rights which they had not previously experienced. However, these were threatened by the emergence of the Ku Klux Klan, as well as sharecropping and the Black Codes.

The Ku Klux Klan

The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) is a white supremacist terrorist group that initially emerged after the Civil War to prevent African-Americans from taking advantage of their new rights. For example, they used violence and intimidation to prevent Black people from voting or running for political office.

Their power declined in 1871 when the Ku Klux Klan Acts were passed to tackle their activities. The Klan re-emerged in the 1920s and again in the 1950s, but it continued to operate underground. Their racist ideology expanded, and widespread lynching occurred mostly in Southern states. Historians estimate that over 4,000 African-Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1968.

Sharecropping and Black Codes

After emancipation, African-Americans were, for the first time, able to work for themselves and earn their own living. This, however, was far from the truth.

Most Black families did not own their own land, so they would rent plots from white landowners and were subjected to sharecropping. Sharecroppers often had to pay more back to landowners as the cost of renting combined with the tools and supplies ended up accounting for a large proportion of their salary. The alternative was labour contracts called the Black Codes: a set of laws that required Black people to sign yearly labour contracts, to avoid being arrested, getting fined, or even being forced to do unpaid labour.

African Americans, therefore, had little to no chance of economic advancement in the South under these systems.

Jim Crow laws

The Reconstruction Era ended in 1877 as many politicians had retreated from the ideas of racial equality they had supported after the Civil War. This same year, the Jim Crow laws were implemented, which essentially legalised segregation and the political oppression of Black Americans.

This meant that:

• There were barriers to African-Americans’ access to voting.

• African-Americans were not allowed to occupy white spaces, and they were kept separate from white people.

Jim crow laws worked to exclude African-Americans from the freedoms of white America and made them second-class citizens, giving Black people huge motivation to leave the South to less oppressive areas of America.

The pull factors of the Great Northern Migration

Although the main reason why African-Americans migrated to the North, Midwest, and West was the racial discrimination and violence they faced in the South, the pull factors revolved around economic opportunity.

The US intervened in the First World War in 1917. As a result, they were left with huge labour shortages in the industrial labour markets in the North, Midwest, and West. This was due, in part, to the fact that the workers had been drafted to fight in the war but also because there was an increased demand for the production of ships, ammunition, steel, and automotive factories.

The need for workers pulled African-Americans to these areas as many of the companies offered them incentive packages that included free transportation and low housing prices. The average factory wage in the North was also much higher than what a person could make from farming in the rural South.

The Second Great Migration was also initially motivated by the labour needs of the Second World War. Around 1.5 million African Americans migrated during the 1940s alone.

What challenges did African-Americans face after migrating?

When African-Americans first migrated to the North, they were not met with the same racial hostility that they faced in the South, but the North was not without racism, as would soon become apparent.

Lack of social mobility

Although Black people now earned a relatively decent wage, it was incredibly difficult for them to improve their social status due to restrictions on housing.

Restrictive covenants

One method used to prevent African-American social mobility in the 1920s–30s was restrictive covenants. These were clauses in housing contracts that made it illegal for African-Americans to buy, lease or live in properties in white neighbourhoods. The only exception to this was if the person was a servant.

These restrictive covenants became a widespread practice in the majority of white neighbourhoods. By 1940, around 80% of properties in Chicago and LA used such clauses.

This meant that although Black people now earned a relatively decent wage, it was impossible for them to improve their social status.

Rising house prices and redlining

From the 1930s, it became much harder for African-Americans to acquire mortgages even within the neighbourhoods that were not restricted by covenants. This was due to the federal housing policy commonly referred to as redlining.

• The Federal Housing association made area colour codes. These colours indicated whether or not it was safe for a lending institution to insure mortgages in a particular neighbourhood.
• Anywhere where African-Americans lived was coloured red, and this meant that it was too risky for a bank to insure a mortgage there.
• This meant that African-Americans were forced to stay in unfavourable living conditions or move to non-restricted (non-covenant) white neighbourhoods. However, this was practically impossible as the housing prices were high.

These policies were a new form of racial segregation. They allowed for generational inequality and denied African-Americans the social chances afforded to other Americans.

Ghettos

As a direct result of housing covenants, redlining, and the rise in housing prices, African-Americans were confined to the most run-down housing in the least desired locations of the cities to which they fled.

Race Riots

Black migration to cities caused increasing white discontent, leading to race riots in some instances; some of the most notable are listed below:

The causes of riots varied depending on location, but the increasing population of African-Americans in urban centres angered white people who felt they were taking their jobs and their housing.

Great Migration significance

The Great Migration was a massive demographic shift, so how exactly did this alter American society, culture, and politics?