great.jpg http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA03/faturoti/harlem/collage/images/great.jpg
(9 March 2008).
The Great Migration, simply put, was the mass movement of black workers from their homes in the South to new homes and employment opportunities in the North and the Midwest. The Great Migration itself, however, is much deeper than such a simple description indicates. In fact, the Great Migration was a complicated and in many ways a very arduous journey for many southern blacks.
The Great Migration began in earnest during the mid-1910s and continued for several decades. The greatest fraction of movement occurred during the late 1910s and early 1920s. Chicago, New York, Detroit and Cleveland saw very significant increases in the black population during the migration as blacks headed for the promise of steady work and decent pay in these industrial centers. Unfortunately the issues of discrimination did not remain in the south and finding jobs remained difficult for those who searched for a better life in the north. It was not until the Immigration Act of 1924 that a majority of the black population saw job opportunities open up in these industrial areas.
Moving to cities like Chicago and New York, as mentioned earlier, did not distance migrating blacks from the spectre of discrimination. Chicago neighborhoods tried to pass segregation ordinances but the Supreme Court struck the laws down as unconstitutional. Not to be outdone, white neighborhoods instituted neighborhood pacts forbidding the white homeowners in a neighborhood from selling to black families. These pacts were never challenged with much success, and the migrating blacks found themselves in less-than-desirable neighborhoods or poorer sections of the city. When unable to find an appropriate neighborhood to move to, many blacks simply congregated together and formed a neighborhood of their own. Harlem, a borough in New York, is a very good example of a once-white neighborhood changing over to a black population during the migration.
rush.jpg. http://xroads.virginia.edu/~MA03/faturoti/harlem/collage/advent.html
(9 March 2008).
The end result of the Great Migration was primarily a reluctant process of integration that just did not begin in the South. It did not mean the end of racial discrimination and even racial violence, but it did signal a shift in this country toward a level of racial tolerance not previously seen. Still, it would be several decades before racial equality and civil rights moved to the forefront of the American consciousness. Perhaps the citizens of the major cities that were recipients of the black population during the Great Migration were more prepared for the civil rights movement than others.
