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The Great Migration
WHY AFRICAN-AMERICANS MOVED OUT OF THE SOUTH BY RODGER DOYLE
I t began between 1916 and 1918, when
more than 400,000 southern blacks went
north; at times, entire communities and
church organizations packed up and moved
virtually intact to New York, Detroit, Chica-
go and other northern cities. During the next
50 years, net migration of blacks from the
South totaled over five million, with addi-
tional millions leaving but returning after a
relatively short stay. In 1900, 90 percent of
black Americans lived in the South, compared
with about 50 percent by 1970.
Substantial migrations had occurred be-
fore—for example, the movement to the Ok-
lahoma Territory between 1890 and 1910—
but nothing on the scale of the mass exodus of
1916–1918. Northern industry, newly de-
prived of immigrant labor from Europe by
World War I, precipitated the migration, but
conditions in the South made migration possi-
ble. At the time, southern blacks were coping
with the devastating effect of the boll weevil on
the cotton crop, which had thrown hundreds
of thousands off the land. Industrialization in
the South, much of it financed by northern in-
terests, made obsolete many black-dominated
occupations, such as blacksmithing. Mean-
while importation of cheap goods from the
North had eliminated local manufacturing
firms and, with them, jobs. Expanding Jim
Crow laws further oppressed blacks.
Indispensable for migration was a com-
munications system for spreading the news
about the North. In part, that task fell to black
newspapers, notably the Chicago Defender,
which had many southern readers, and by
agents of northern industry who came to the
South to recruit blacks, at first even giving out
free railroad tickets to Chicago and other
cities. Soon migrants were relaying glowing
messages— letters that were often read from
pulpits. Nonprofit organizations, such as the
Urban League, disseminated information
about jobs and housing to new migrants.
During the 1930s, opportunities dimin-
ished in the North, and emigration slackened,
RODGER DOYLE
not picking up again until World War II and
the postwar boom. In the 1940s blacks began
moving in large numbers up the ladder into
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higher-paying manufacturing positions, thanks
in part to the newly mandated Fair Employ-
ment Practices Committee. Unions also helped,
as their leaders realized that it was better to
have blacks in the fold rather than using them
as strikebreakers. But blacks lost some eco-
nomic gains in the 1970s and 1980s because
of deindustrialization, and they began leaving
the North beginning in the 1970s, going to a
now booming South where prices were low
and the racial climate had improved.
It is sometimes said that the mechanical
cotton picker, introduced in the 1940s, made
farm hands redundant, thus putting pressure
on them to migrate. But it was probably more
often the case that cotton growers adopted
the machines because labor had gone north-
ward. Another notion is that southern blacks
migrated to northern states for the welfare
benefits, but no hard evidence for this propo-
sition exists.
1910
FURTHER
READING
The Strange Career of Jim Crow.
C. Vann Woodward. Oxford
University Press, 1955.
Migration and Residential
1970 Mobility in the United States.
Larry Long. Russell Sage
Foundation, 1988.
Farewell — We’re Good and
Gone: The Great Black
Migration. Carole Marks. Indiana
University Press, 1989.
Black Exodus: The Great
Migration from the American
African-Americans (percent of U.S. population)
South. Edited by Alferdteen
Less than 2 2 to 5 5 to 15 Harrison. University of Mississippi
15 to 30 30 or more Press, 1991.
Next month: The great migration and the The Great Migration in
formation of the black ghetto. Historical Perspective: New
Dimensions of Race, Class and
Gender. Edited by Joe William
Rodger Doyle can be reached at Trotter, Jr. Indiana University
rdoyle2@adelphia.net Press, 1991.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN 25