The Great Migration
&
The Harlem Renaissance
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What is the Great Migration?
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Started in the beginning
of the 1900’s
Involved the mass exodus
of millions of African
Americans from the South
to the North
Over 1 million were
estimated to have
migrated north
Greatly influenced the
Harlem Renaissance
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Why migrate?
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Freedom
Treatment
Crop infestations
Technological
Innovations
World War I
Racial backlash by
whites
 Job Opportunities
 To prove their identity
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Why Go North???
Fill up jobs
 Political Freedoms
 Better life
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Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages
– Freedom
– Identity
– Better chances for
education
– Formation of large
communities
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Disadvantages
– People killed
– Racism in north often
just as bad as south
– Poor schooling for
large communities
– False perception of
“lots of opportunity”
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How was the North Affected?
Population increase
 Economy
 Not welcomed in the beginning, even from
some African Americans
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How did the Great Migration affect
the Harlem Renaissance?
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Music
Art
Food
Civil Rights
Power of the People
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The Harlem Renaissance
It was a cultural nationalistic
movement caused by the GREAT
MIGRATION
 "originally called the “NEW NEGRO
MOVEMENT”
 "spiritual coming of age" in which the
black community was able to seize
upon its "first chances for group
expression and self determination."
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Impact of the H.R.
Black Migration, south to north, changed
their image from rural to urban, from
peasant to sophisticate
 A rich source for racial imagination and it
freed the blacks from the establishment of
past condition
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Major Contributors to the H.R.
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Langston Hughes
– Writer: poetry, novels,
music, short stories
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W.E.B. DuBois
– Socialist, Public Speaker
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Louis Armstrong &
Billie Holiday
– Musicians
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Zora Neale Hurston
– Writer: novels, poetry
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