In the season 7 premiere, we’ll detail the who, what, when, where, how, and why around why our ancestors left the deep south and migrated to cities like St. Louis, Gary, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Detroit, Milwaukee, and more.
Also, there are some articles and etc. attached. Be sure to read them.
Previous Episodes:
- State Specific Playlist – https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLXTLb9wPqZyxYqw0AXa09aFu5mJ132I6X
- Interviewing for Family History – https://youtu.be/CmedtSH-GV8
- Rites of Life: Religious, Fraternal, and Benevolent Societies – https://youtu.be/iDZLsOXhcag
- Newspapers for People of Color Genealogy Research – https://youtu.be/XLycM7sUM2I
- Tales from the Undertaker: African American Cemeteries and Funeral Homes – https://youtu.be/cT7ceiUdSFI
Background and Motivations
- Locations
- Missouri: St. Louis, East St. Louis
- Illinois: Chicago, Danville
- Indiana: Indianapolis, Gary
- Michigan: Detroit
- Ohio: Cleveland, Columbus
- Timeline
- 1915-1940 and 1940-1970
- Opportunity
- Jobs
- To flee racial oppression
- Opportunity to buy land and and westward expansion
- Laws prohibiting the ownership of land following the 13th Amendment
- Religious and social organizations
- The role of the military
- World War I, World War II, Korean War, Vietnam
- Reframing the perspective
- Considering those who left versus those who stayed behind
- Juxtaposition of location of residents versus location of their birth
- Seminal Events
- Map
- Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series: https://lawrencemigration.phillipscollection.org/culture/migration-map
The Experience
- The experience in the Great Migration Location
- Transference of the family homestead
- One person sets up shop, others follow and stay with them, and then move to their own place; cyclical
- Attending the same churches, working in the same jobs, burial in the same cemeteries; the C.R.E.W. (church, recreation, environment, work) replicated in the north
- The emergence of national Black news
- Correspondence from the family homestead reported in major papers and vice versa
- The emergence of Black culture as American pop culture
- Music
- Art
- Sports
- Vacations to the family homestead
- Cultural exchange based on where you were living; city kids had to learn the country
- Shift in the Definition of Blackness
- Class shifts
- Language shifts
- The invention of Code Switching and respectability
- The role of photography
- Taking pictures when you “made it”
- Class warfare
- Collision of new immigrants and new emigrants
- Racial oppression revisited
- De Facto segregation in public services (schools, housing, etc.)
- The emergence of urban planning (and lack thereof) and redlining
- Continuing movement
- People didn’t always stay in the first location they went to
- Returning home upon death
- Transference of the family homestead
- The experience in the family homestead
- Loss of membership in religious and social organizations
- The creation of new organizations and systems
- Ruling families, businesses, and structures gain more of a stronghold
- Vacations to Great Migration locations
- Cultural exchange based on where you were living; the country kids having to learn the city
- The emergence of the Civil Rights Movement
- Largely based on those who chose to stay and/or who were left behind
The Aftermath
- The paradox that just success was gained by leaving
- The return in the late 20th Century
- Land loss at the family homestead
- Black Farmers Have Been Robbed of Land. A New Bill Would Give Them a “Quantum Leap” Toward Justice, Mother Jones, November 19, 2020, https://www.motherjones.com/food/2020/11/black-farmers-have-been-robbed-of-land-a-new-bill-would-give-them-a-quantum-leap-toward-justice/
- The Great Land Robbery, The Atlantic, September 29, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/09/this-land-was-our-land/594742/
- Black Land Loss, Duke University – https://wfpc.sanford.duke.edu/media/black-land-loss
- Impact on the arts
- The Current Protest Movement Against Policing
- The veil of “being safe” outside of the family homestead location
- Columbus Police Kill Black Man Weeks After Protests Against Brutality, New York Times, December 22, 2020 – https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/22/us/columbus-ohio-shooting.html
Episode Resource Content:
- Ohio History Central, https://ohiohistorycentral.org/w/Great_Migration
- Early Chicago: The Great Migration, https://interactive.wttw.com/dusable-to-obama/the-great-migration
- Housing Segregation: The Great Migration and Beyond, ProPublica, https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/city-maps
- Photos show a Dothan neighborhood that by 1961 was eradicated by urban renewal, July 14, 2019, Dothan Eagle https://dothaneagle.com/news/local/photos-show-a-dothan-neighborhood-that-by-1961-was-eradicated-by-urban-renewal/article_a202e376-a4fd-11e9-8059-c3f385c94f73.html
- William Church Photo Collection (Troy State University) – Dothan, AL photos – https://www.troy.edu/about-us/dothan-campus/wiregrass-archives/inventories/101.html
- The Great Migration – Resources – http://www.inmotionaame.org/gallery/?migration=8&topic=10&type=map
- Map of Migration Routes Followed by African Americans During the Great Migration: https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1887
- Map of Railroad Routes Followed by Black Migrants, https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1594
- World War I and The Great Migration – House of Representatives, https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Temporary-Farewell/World-War-I-And-Great-Migration/
- The Impact of the Great Migration on Mortality of African Americans: Evidence from the Deep South, National Institute of Health – https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4559284/
- “Red Summer,” Slate, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2015/03/civil-rights-movement-history-the-long-tradition-of-black-americans-taking-up-arms-to-defend-themselves-against-racial-violence.html
- The Great Migration: The First Moving-to-Opportunity Project, Bloomberg City Lab – Did black migrants from the South put their children in a better economic position? A new study provides some answers. – https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-25/what-happened-when-blacks-moved-north-during-the-great-migration