Great Migration

The Great Migration was the movement of some six million African Americans from rural areas of the Southern states of the United States to urban areas in the Northern states between 1916 and 1970. It occurred in two waves, basically before and after the Great Depression. At the beginning of the 20th century, 90 percent of black Americans lived in the South. By 1970 nearly half of all African Americans lived in Northern cities. 

Many African Americans in the South found themselves trapped in sharecropping jobs and other forms of debt peonage with no hope of improvement in their circumstances. Jim Crow laws kept them in an inferior position relative to white people, and they were denied political rights. There were more jobs available in the North, and, though racism was rampant, racial segregation was not mandated there. They embarked on the Great Migration seeking economic and social opportunity.

The greater economic and educational opportunities led to an explosion of artistic expression in music and literature. Migrants and their children created the Harlem Renaissance, changed the sound of the blues music that they brought north with them, desegregated sports, and became involved in politics. The Great Migration arguably was a factor leading to the American civil rights movement.