The Great Migration
Author(s): Joe William Trotter, Jr.
Source: Magazine of History, Vol. 17, No. 1, World War I (Oct., 2002), pp. 31-33
Published by: Organization of American Historians
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163561
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Magazine of History.
http://www.jstor.org
JoeWilliam Trotter Jr.
Great
The
the onset
F'rom
recent
times,
of the
migration
international
has
been
slave
on
a
voluntary
character,
trade through
a persistent
African American history. Yet, only with
Civil War and emancipation
did
black population movement
take
Migration
theme
in
the advent ofthe
South Carolina, and Louisiana, for example, made up over sixty
increase in Chicago
percent ofthe black population
(and Illinois
in general) between 1910 and 1920. At the same time, more black
men than women migrated during
'
^
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..."' '.m&Jk"
-Mmmw^\^y^jm
^jfc3^mmm&^r~
: , '.j;;;-. V-, ....*,.-J,.S:.;fl.^fe
J4.-, :-. ' ,< ;,,^v^fe; ? -8:
^j, J"i"?^1
^ I
;:;-;p:-.Wft.i;
jl^.:
,"_
*% l"B.
slowly
with
that of other
converging
With
the
groups.
coming ofWorld
I and its aftermath, blacks
War
made a fundamental break with
into cities in
the land and move
gence
of new
patterns
of race,
class,
reversing
the prewar
trend.
In the rapidly industrializing cities
of Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwau
kee,
for
sex
the
example,
ratio
one
hundred
ranged between
twenty to one hundred forty men to
every one hundred women during
large numbers. The Great Migra
tion ofthe early twentieth century
foreshadowed the long run trans
formation of African Americans
from a predominantly
rural to a
urban
predominantly
population.
It not only reflected the African
Americans' quest for freedom, jobs,
and social justice, but also the emer
the war,
the war
years.
A variety of factors underlay
black population movement.
Afri
can Americans
'
'
V : ..'
.':: I
ni|.|l %ff-^
~i
tmHh,
fratt|f ^aai^f.^ftffrtafttflttff Mart fflHHtotffim
.'
an
sought
alterna
to
tive
sharecropping,
and racial injus
disfranchisement,
tice in the South.
In 1917, the
African Methodist American Church
Review articulated the forces that
propelled blacks out of the South.
relations inAmerican
culture, society, and politics.
As a result of World War
I, an estimated seven hundred
thousand to one million blacks left the South.
Another
eight
hundred thousand to one million left during the 1920s. Although
to southern cities like Norfolk,
the prewar migrants moved
as well as to a few northern
and
Atlanta
Louisville, Birmingham,
justice, humanity and fair play of the white South is gone," the
One migrant articulated the same mood in
paper concluded.
verse: "An' let one race have all de South?Where
color lines are
cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, African Ameri
cans now moved throughout the urban North and West
(see
table). Moreover, while upper South and border states repre
sented the chief sources of out-migration before World War I,
stream to northern
Deep South states dominated the migration
and western cities. Blacks born inMississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
drawn?For
'Hagar's child' done [stem] de tide?Farewell?we're
good and gone."
African Americans were also attracted by the pull of opportu
nities in the North.
The labor demands of northern industries,
immigration restriction legislation, and greater access to the rights
of citizens (including the franchise) all encouraged the movement
and ethnic
"Neither
character,
the
accumula
tion of property, the fostering of the Church, the schools and a
better and higher standard of the home" had made a difference in
in the sense of
the status of black southerners.
"Confidence
OAH Magazine
of History
October
2002
31
in northern
into northern cities. Wages
industries
to
from
$5 per eight-hour day, compared to as
$3
usually ranged
little as $.75 to $1 per day in southern agriculture and to no more
than $2.50 for a nine-hour day in southern industries. Moreover,
between 1915 and 1925, the average wages of domestics in some
of blacks
cities
northern
doubled.
health
better
care,
cities
Northern
and
schools,
also
promised
access
to
vote.
the
to
African Americans
often viewed the Great Migration
northern cities in glowing terms: "The Promised Land," the
"Flight out of Egypt," and "Going into Canaan." One black man
wrote back to his southern home, "The (Col.) men are making
good. [The job] never pays less than $3.00 per day for (10) hours."
In her letter home, a black female related,
"I am well and thankful to say I am doing
well ... I work in Swifts Packing Com
pany."
another
here,"
"Up
over
and
again,
that:
firmed
African
here,
"Up
one
man."
As
home
from the North,
been
here
years
twenty
...
move
and
from
cities.
agriculture
More
components.
blacks migrated to southern cities between
1900 and 1920 than to northern ones.
Further, African Americans
frequently
from
comprised
to
twenty-five
ten
than
example,
Be
to northern
fore moving
delphia,
cities.
in northern
percent
per
fifty
to little more
cent of the total, compared
cities like Phila
and New York, for
Boston,
rural
first
migrants
southern
cities
sonville,
Savannah,
like New Orleans,
Memphis,
to
moved
Jack
Charles
The
ME
blacks moving
ana,
and
Texas,
of
and
southern
up from Mississippi,
Chicago
was
the
association, during its eleventh an
nual convention at the Mount Haven
Baptist church, 3725 Cedar avenue S.
E., took up the problem of looking
after thousands of Colored children
who have come into the state recently
the south.
pom
The rush of Colored laborers and
their families to northern states in the
last fewmonths has broughtthis prob
lem of children directly up to Colored
Baptists and mission workers._
from
removed
African
arrived
Americans,
Newly
their children
had no one to watch
extended
families,
in the
to work. This article appeared
while
they went
27 October
1917. (Ohio Historical
Cleveland
Advocate,
also a part of the American
Archives,
at the Library of Congress.)
collections
Center
southeastern
Arkansas,
logical
Georgia.
Alabama,
destination,
To
Louisi
whereas
New Jersey, New York, and the New
cities in Pennsylvania,
states
attracted blacks from Florida, South Carolina,
England
32
OAH Magazine
of History
October
and
jobs,
one
As
housing
ob
contemporary
the form of reasons for leaving."
The Ohio ColoredBaptistWomen's
Brunswick, and Savannah
Alabama, while Valdosta, Waycross,
served as distribution centers for blacks leaving the depressed
counties
transportation,
was
"The
stimuli
dis
chief
noted,
. . .The
in
cussion.
talk
the barber
shops
. . . soon
stores
to take
and grocery
began
PROBLEM
ton, and Birmingham.
Southern,
the St. Louis and San Francisco, and the
Louisville, Nashville,
Illinois Central railroads all traveled northward from Birmingham
cities the major
the Jefferson County
and Bessemer, making
In
from
Alabama.
distribution points for blacks going north
and Albany served as
Georgia, cities like Columbus, Americus,
west
distribution points for blacks leaving from
Georgia and east
agricultural
[Chi
awaiting
into
Southern blacks helped to organize their own movement
the urban North. They developed an extensive communications
network, which included railroad employees, who traveled back
and forth between northern and southern cities; northern black
weeklies like the Chicago Defender and the Pittsburgh Courier; and an
expanding chain of kin and friends. Using their networks of families
learned
and friends, African Americans
the
fueling
It had specific regional
sub-regional
guests
temporary
only
As
to proceed further and settle in surrounding cities
about
I just begin
southern
were
streams.
secondary
"All of the arrivals here
towns."
wrote
yes and no, Sam and Bill."
The Great Migration was by no means
to northern
the opportunity
and
. . .
They
stay.
a
be
to feel like aman... My children are going
to the same school with the whites and I
don't have to humble to no one. I have
registered. Will vote in the next election
and there isn't any yes Sir or no Sir. It's all
a simple
not
developed
beforehand.
"I should have
ago
did
cago]
usually
observer noted,
BAPTIST
IMEK
con
can
man
black
southern
one contemporary
cities, black
server
light." Over
Americans
a man
population
in northern
arrival
Upon
movement
said,
migrant
"Our people are in a different
and Georgia.
Virginia,
2002
placed
American
Memory
letters,
testimonies
and
the
of migrants
to visit.
As one South
to
Carolina migrant
Pittsburgh recalled, "I
was plowing in the field and itwas real hot.
who
returned
I stayed with some of the boys who
would leave home and [come] back... and
would have money, and they had clothes.
Ididn't have that.We all grew up together.
And I said, 'Well, as long as I stay here I'm
I tied that
going to get nowhere.' And
And
to a tree
mule
Other
clubs,
and
a train."
caught
formed migration
migrants
pooled
their
and
resources,
in
in groups. Deeply enmeshed
kin and friendship
networks,
role
black women played a conspicuous
moved
black
to organize
in helping
tion.
recent
As
women
were
ers."
own
the
black
migra
suggests,
they
African
stereotyped
keep
had
often
reasons
gender-specific
resented
kin
"primary
ing the rural South.
women
the
scholarship
Moreover,
their
for
leav
American
images
of
"mammy ,"who presumably
African
families above her own.
the black
loyalty
to white
women's
migration
lifting the race and improving
compatible
process
migration
money,
Also
were
reinforced
the
notion
the image of black women
that
were
goals.
As African Americans moved into northern cities in growing
Southern
numbers, a black industrial working class emerged.
dock
farm
sawmill
black sharecroppers,
workers,
hands,
laborers,
in the urban
into new positions
and railroad hands all moved
the
InCleveland, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and Milwaukee,
economy.
men
in
increased
industrial
of
black
jobs
percentage
employed
from an estimated ten to twenty percent of the black labor force
in 1910 to about sixty to seventy percent in 1920 and 1930.
African American women also entered industrial jobs, although
their gains were far less than those of black men. InChicago, the
in manufacturing
trades increased
percentage of black women
from less than one thousand in 1910 to over three thousand in
1920. Industrial jobs now made up fifteen percent of the black
female labor force compared to less than seven percent in 1910.
labor agents helped to recruit black workers for jobs in
While
auto,
meatpacking,
and
steel,
other
mass
industries,
production
these labor agents were soon supplanted by the expansion of black
familial and communal networks. Employers testified that, "After
the initial group movement by agents, Negroes kept going by twos
and threes. These were drawn by letters, and by actual advances
..
of money, from Negroes who had already settled in the North.
. every
to
in
writes
North
and
his
that
makes
the
back
Negro
good
starts
friends
off
a new
group."
Although African Americans
improved their lot by taking
in
urban
entered the industrial
nonetheless
industries, they
jobs
at
economy
over,
as
the
their
lowest
of
rungs
numbers
the
ladder.
occupational
in northern
increased
and
western
segregation
of
nationalization
the
cities,
cities,
"race
the growing
they highlighted
question"
in American
ing, cultural,
political,
economic,
aid
mutual
churches,
and
societies,
civil
rights
fraternal
activities.
orders,
and
The
people. By 1970, African Americans, beginning as the most rural
of Americans, had not only become the most urbanized segment
ofthe U.S. population, they also posed the most salient challenge
to the nation's
status
quo.
Note:
The author wishes
to thank Macmillan
for
Publishing
Company
on black population
to reprint portions
of his essay
movement,
permission
in Jack Saltzman,
of African
American
Culture
and
ed., Encyclopedia
History (1996).
James R. Land
Grossman,
Bibliography
Black
of Hope: Chicago,
IL: University
of Chicago
and
Southerners,
Press, 1989.
Migration.
Chicago,
Black Exodus:
Harrison, Alferdteen.
Jackson, MS:
Lemann, Nicholas.
Marks,
The Great Migration from theAmerican South.
of Mississippi
Press, 1991.
University
The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration
it
and How
1991.
Changed America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
Carole.
Good
and Gone:
Farewell?We're
The
IN: Indiana University
Press, 1989.
Bloomington,
to Kansas
Irvin. Exodusters: Black Migration
Painter, Nell
New
the Great
York: Knopf,
Great
Migration.
after Reconstruction.
1977.
They
social
Trotter,
the 1920s. The Garvey Movement,
the cultural renaissance in
Harlem and elsewhere, the growing militancy
of the National
Association
for the Advancement
of Colored People, the spread
of the National Urban League movement,
and the emergence of
the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters gained stimulus from the
mass migration of blacks from the rural and urban South into the
cities of the North and West.
Urban History: A Critique
of the
Jr., "Afro-American
Joe William,
in JoeWilliam
The Making of an
Literature,"
Trotter,
Jr., Black Milwaukee:
Industrial Proletariat,
IL:University
of Illinois Press, 1985.
1915-45. Urbana,
Trotter, JoeWilliam,
Jr., The African American Experience. Boston, MA: Houghton
Mifflin
2001.
Company,
JoeWilliam Trotter Jr. isDepartment Head and Mellon Professor of
History at Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently President ofthe
Labor and Working Class History Association and directs Carnegie
Mellon sCenter forAfrican American Urban Studies and theEconomy
As well as several scholarly essays, books, and edited
(CAUSE).
volumes on African American urban and Labor history, he is also the
author
of
the college
The
textbook,
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
from page
agriculture,
inHistorical Perspective: New
Trotter,
Joe William,
Jr., ed. The Great Migration
Dimensions
IN: Indiana Univer
of Race, Class, and Gender.
Bloomington,
sity Press, 1991.
clubs; established a range of new business and professional ser
vices; and launched diverse labor, civil rights, and political orga
nizations. These activities culminated
in the rise of the "New
movement
I
its flourishing during
War
and
World
Negro"
during
4 Continued
in southern
revolution
technological
the emergence of the New Deal welfare state, and the militant
ofthe 1950s and
modern civil rights and black power movements
to
all
the
transformation
of
1960s,
helped
long-run
complete
blacks from a predominantly
rural to a predominantly
urban
society.
African Americans
responded to the impact of class and racial
restrictions on their lives by intensifying their institution-build
built
America.
More
they faced growing restrictions on where they could stay, educate
their children, and gain access tomuch needed social services and
Race violence erupted inChicago, East
public accommodations.
St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia during the era ofthe Great
Race riots not only helped to reinforce residential
Migration.
in northern
As the nation entered the Depression and World War II, the
to transform both black and white
Great Migration
continued
African
American
Experience
2001).
30
but also prevent a vengeful peace by the
help defeat Germany
John Milton Cooper,
Jr., The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow
Wilson
and Theodore Roosevelt
Press of
(Cambridge, MA: The Belknap
Harvard University
Press, 1983), 288-333.
States would
Allies?see
24- Wilson
visited the State, War,
and Navy Department
from 4:00 to
Building
26 March
4:30 p.m. on Monday,
House
1917, see "Head Usher's White
The president probably returned the telegram to Baker
Diary, 1913-1921."
after the cabinet meeting
that began at 2:30 p.m., Tuesday,
27 March
1917.
Time ofthe cabinet meeting
recorded in "Executive Office Diary." The late
Arthur S. Link kindly allowed me to consult this in the Office of the Papers
over conscription
in Congress, which
is when the "Roosevelt
became a public issue, see Chambers, To Raise an Army, 153-77.
27. Chambers,
To Raise an Army,
S. Link, Woodrow Wilson:
144-51; Arthur
AHM Publishing Corpo
Revolution, War and Peace (Arlington HeightsJL:
"Over Where? The AEF and the
ration, 1979), 69-71; and Allan R. Miilett,
American
for Victory,
in Kenneth
and
1917-1918,"
Strategy
J. Hagan
26. On
the battle
Volunteers"
William
R. Roberts,
eds., Against All Enemies: Interpretations of American
Green
Military History from Colonial Times to the Present (Westport,CT:
wood Press, 1986), 235-56.
of Woodrow
Firestone Library, Princeton University.
Wilson,
of Baker and the generals to go over the new conscrip
conference
tion plan reported in Crowder
to Stimson,
29 March,
1917, cited earlier.
to the president Crowder's
Baker delivered
two-page summary ofthe bill to
25. 28 March
increase
the military
temporarily
indicating
would be raised solely by selective conscription.
cited earlier.
1917, and enclosure
that
the Additional
Forces
Baker toWilson,
29 March
John Whiteclay
Chambers
at Rutgers University,
New
II isprofessor and former chair ofthe History Department
Brunswick, New Jersey. Two of his books, To Raise
an Army: The Draft Comes toModem America (1987) and The Oxford
Companion
to American
Awards
the Society for Military
from
Military
History
(1999),
won Distinguished
Book
History.
OAH Magazine
of History
October
2002
33