The Great Migration
T. Dana deMink
Goals
• This activity is for a high school level
English Language Arts class.
• This presentation is about The Great
Migration. It provides the historical
background of events leading to The Great
Migration, and is the introduction to a unit
on The Harlem Renaissance.
• The goals is for students to learn about the
causes of The Great Migration from The
Emancipation Proclamation forward.
• These goals are part of the Michigan
Education Standard Benchmarks for English
Language Arts Content Standard 5(3); 5(4);
5(5).
What is the Great Migration?
• The Great Migration was a massive relocation of
African Americans from the rural Southern states to
cities of the North.
• The First Wave: 1910 to 1930 (1.6 million people).
After 1930 the migration slowed down a bit because
of the Great Depression (1929 to the early 1940’s).
• Second Wave: 1940 to 1970 (5 million people). The
U.S. entered the Second World War in 1941.
• What does “Diaspora” mean? The movement of
people from their homeland to somewhere else.
• This presentation will concentrate on The First Wave
They came from…
Alabama
Mississippi
(To name a few States…)
Louisiana
And went to…
New York
St. Louis
As well as
Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh,
Cleveland,
Indianapolis
Detroit
Why is the Great Migration
Important To This Class?
• We just finished reading Booker T.
Washington’s Up From Slavery; as well as
selected readings from W.E.B. DuBois.
• This is our lead in to The Harlem Renaissance
(1918 to 1937), the most influential movement
in African American artistic/cultural history.
• The Great Migration provides the historical
background for our next writers, James
Weldon Johnson, Zora Neal Hurston, and
Langston Hughes.
• Like it or not, you are going to get some
history in your English classes!
Why did African Americans leave
the South?
Let’s Go Back in the Time Machine…
•
The Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863. Four
million people, poor, displaced, and mostly illiterate, are
free but homeless.
• The Civil War did not end until 1865 (it
started in 1861). Some “freedmen” ran to the
Union army for protection. The Union army
didn’t know what to do with these “refugees,”
it could barely care for its own troops. Many
freed slaves died of diseases in the Union
stockades.
• Many took to the roads in
search of work, sometimes
traveling over mountains
with little more than their
clothes. Do you recall what
happens to Booker T.
Washington’s family when
they are freed?
• The Plantation-based
economy was in ruins. Many
freed blacks returned to the
plantations as
sharecroppers.
Sharecroppers plowed,
weeded and harvested land
owned by others for a small
share of the crop. Their lives
were virtually the same as in
slavery, but they were able to
keep their families together.
• Many were so poor that they
went in to debt to their
former white owners (or to
the farm owners) to pay for
food, clothing, shelter etc.
Despite their apparent freedom, African
Americans received little protection in the South.
To a certain extent, they took one step forward
and two steps back.
Reconstruction was a failure…
• The Civil Rights Act of 1875 guaranteed African
Americans equal treatment in public places,
public transportation, and prohibited exclusion
from jury service. The law was hardly ever
enforced and The Supreme Court decided the
act was unconstitutional in 1883.
• The Freedman’s Bureau, was established by
Congress in 1865 to help former black slaves
and poor whites following the Civil War. The
Freedman’s Bureau provided food, housing,
medical aid, and established industrial schools.
Due to limited funds, and political corruption,
the Bureau was shut down in 1872.
Go back to the Quiz
Reconstruction was a failure….
• Many southern Democrats began to make informal
agreements with the Republicans behind closed
doors. In the Compromise of 1877, the
Republicans promised that if Rutherford B. Hayes
was elected they would withdraw the last of the
federal troops from the south. When this
happened, the period known as Reconstruction,
was over.
• “Black Codes” or local statutes came in to play.
White southern leaders re-took control over former
Confederate States. These codes were designed
to “keep Blacks in their place.” These local
statutes (no loitering, no unemployment, no being
out “past curfew,” no indebtedness, no voting, no
relations with White women) only increased the
power of the Ku Klux Klan.
• Founded in 1866, the Ku Klux Klan rose up from the
tradition of Slave Patrols. The KKK served to push
the freedmen back to the plantation. Unlike slave
patrols, the Klan worked outside of the law through
the use of brutal intimidation tactics.
• Their goals were to maintain social order of black
population through terrorism; suppress black socioeconomic sufficiency; and maintain the so-called
“supremacy” of white class structure.
• There were over 2,800 documented victims of
lynch mobs from 1882 to 1930 in 10 Southern
states. 2,500 victims were Black. On average one
Black person died at the hands of an angry White
mob one day a week.
• In 1898 the boll weevil invaded Texas and ate
its way east across the South. Thousands of
farm workers were displaced, and the long
reign of King Cotton as the region's economic
backbone was finally brought to an end.
Go Back to the Quiz
And Then a Miraculous
Thing Happened…
World War…
•
World War I (1914)
brought a halt to
European immigration.
For more than 60 years
European immigrants
supplied cheap labor to
American factories in the
North.
•
The War called for a
“beefing up” of arms and
supplies. There was a
severe labor shortage in
U.S. factories
•
Wars always create an
economic “boom.” But with
no workers, it was looking
like American Industry was
going to miss its golden
opportunity.
•
Northern factories began
recruiting for workers from
the South.
Promised Land…
• Reports spread of abundant job
opportunities in the North.
• Recruiters set up stations on
street corners in Southern towns.
They approached young, strong,
men and offered them train
tickets.
• Recruiters published success
stories in local newspapers of
those that had traveled to work in
the North and were successful.
• These stories were read in barber
shops and churches.
• Soon “Migration Fever” swept
through the South.
The Journey
• They traveled by train,
boat, bus, car, and even
in horse drawn carriages.
• The journey was long and
slow. Many stopped to find
work along the way. This was
called “step migration.”
• Fares skyrocketed from $.02
cents per mile in 1915 to $.24
cents per mile three years
later.
• Travelers were
segregated in public
transit waiting rooms and
en-route. African
American travelers could
find little to eat or drink
on their stops.
Did they have a “Happily Ever After?”
Not Exactly…
• The Migration created housing
shortages in urban areas. Banks
limit lending to Blacks. Migrants
lived in tenement housing. During
this time Harlem became the “Black
Mecca.”
• “Separate But Equal” (Jim Crowe
system 1876-1965) becomes
common-place.
• They were snubbed by existing
White immigrant labor groups
because they are willing to work
for a lower wage.
• Race riots (St. Louis) in factories.
More About “Separate but Equal”…..
• In 1896 the Supreme Court ruled that “separate but
equal was constitutional with its ruling in the case
Plessy v. Ferguson.
• Long story short, Homer Plessy, (a man of mixed
ancestry), bought a first class ticket on a train in
Louisiana. He attempted to board the “Whites
Only” car. Plessy refused to move and was
arrested. He claimed that this was in violation of
his 13th and 14th Amendment Rights. The Supreme
Court upheld the State of Louisiana’s decision to
remove and arrest Plessy. Click here to read more
about Plessy v. Ferguson.
• This decision only cemented the Jim Crowe
“Separate But Equal” system and with the new
wave of migration to Northern Cities, brought more
segregationist practices, such as separate
transportation, bathrooms, lunch counters, etc.
• One step forward…two steps back!
Go back to the Quiz
But it was also a time of
opportunity….many Southerners
flourished in the North
• Many go to college in the North and become
professionals.
• An African American middle class is
established.
• Jazz music, and other African American
artistic expressions blossom and become
part of “main-stream” culture. This period is
known as the “Harlem Renaissance.”
• African Americans begin to “organize”. This
period sees the establishment of NAACP in
1909 under the leadership of W.E.B DuBois;
the National Urban League (which worked to
give employment training to those
immigrating from the South.); and the “Back
to Africa Movement.”
1. One reason for The Great Migration
was:
 They were running away from
slavery
 It was too hot in the South
 They didn’t want to farm anymore
 The economic instability of the
South.
NO, SORRY. GO BACK TO
SLIDE 7 AND KEEP READING!
YOU WERE PAYING
ATTENTION! GREAT! NOW
GO ON TO THE NEXT
QUESTION…
2. What was one of the tasks of the Freedman’s
Bureau?
 Clear roads after the Civil War.
 Establish schools to educate freed African
Americans so that they could learn a trade.
 Rebuild houses in the South.
 Provide transportation for the Ku Klux Klan.
GREAT JOB! NOW GO ON TO THE NEXT
QUESTION…
3. Why was the loss of the Plessy v. Ferguson
case so devastating to African Americans?
 It institutionalized the idea of “separate
but equal.”
 The same problems followed African
Americans from the South to the North.
 Even though the goal was “equal” things
really weren’t equal. For example, if there
was no Black movie theatre in a town,
Blacks then had to sit in the back of
White movie theatres.
 All of the above.
GREAT JOB! Please read the last slide
to complete this lesson.
Try again. Take a look at
slide 13.
This is true, but remember there is only one right
answer. Re-read slide 22 and try again.
CONCLUSION
• Something to think about…what is the
common driver that links “The Middle
Passage” to “The Great Migration?”
• The early settlers needed human labor to
clear swamps and farmland in order to
grow lucrative cash crops such as cotton,
tobacco, and sugar.
• During the American Industrial era, the need
for low-cost labor was the same. African
Americans worked for a low wage in
factories in Northern cities. They fueled big
industry. Why did they do it?
…In the words of Paul Laurence Dunbar in his poem
entitled “Sympathy” (1899)
“I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, -When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!”