AP Syllabus focus:
‘In the Great Migration, African Americans fled segregation and violence to the North and West, finding new opportunities but also facing continued discrimination.’
The Great Migration reshaped American society as millions of African Americans left the South to pursue safety, opportunity, and autonomy, yet encountered persistent racial discrimination nationwide.
The Forces Driving the Great Migration
Push Factors in the Jim Crow South
African Americans faced entrenched Jim Crow segregation, racial terror, and systematic economic exploitation, creating strong incentives to migrate.
Jim Crow segregation: A legally enforced system of racial separation in the South after Reconstruction that restricted African American rights and opportunities.
• Racial violence, including lynching and intimidation by white supremacist groups, threatened daily survival.
• Sharecropping, a system in which farmers worked land for a share of the crop, trapped families in debt and dependency.
• Disenfranchisement blocked political participation, reinforcing the region’s oppressive racial order.
These pressures made migration not only a search for opportunity but also an assertion of personal and communal autonomy.
Pull Factors in the North and West
Cities outside the South promised industrial employment and comparatively greater safety.
An African American family stands beside a car packed with belongings as they leave Florida for the North during the Great Depression. Their loaded vehicle reflects both the economic pressures of the South and the hope for new opportunities in northern cities. The image slightly postdates World War I but accurately illustrates the broader Great Migration patterns covered in this subsubtopic. Source.
• World War I labor shortages opened factory, meatpacking, steel, and railroad jobs previously closed to African Americans.
• Northern labor recruiters and Black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender encouraged migration by highlighting higher wages and improved schooling.
• Expanding urban communities provided social networks, churches, and political organizations that helped new arrivals adjust.
Migration Patterns and Urban Transformation
Scale and Geography of Movement
Between 1915 and 1940, more than one million African Americans migrated primarily to cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Los Angeles.
The movement altered demographic patterns nationwide.
• Southern rural counties lost significant portions of their Black population.
• Northern and western cities saw major population increases that contributed to rising cultural and political influence.
Settlement Patterns and Community Formation
African American migrants often settled in segregated neighborhoods due to discriminatory housing practices.
Redlining: A discriminatory practice in which lenders and real estate agents denied loans and housing opportunities to residents in certain neighborhoods, often based on race.
Despite these barriers, migrants built vibrant cultural and institutional life.
• Churches, fraternal organizations, and mutual aid societies supported newcomers.
• The development of Black-owned businesses created new economic opportunities.
These communities fostered cultural expression and political engagement that reshaped national identity.
Opportunities and Upward Mobility
Economic Advancement
While wages remained lower than those of white workers, migrants experienced significant improvement compared to Southern agricultural labor.
• Industrial jobs provided more stable incomes and opportunities for skill development.
• Participation in wartime and peacetime industries created new paths toward economic independence.
• Women found expanded employment in domestic service, factories, and clerical work.
Education and Civic Participation
Northern public schools offered broader curricular opportunities, and the possibility of meaningful civic participation motivated many families to move.
• Children of migrants often experienced expanded educational and professional horizons.
• Access to political organizations allowed African Americans to engage in urban reform movements, labor activism, and civil rights campaigns.
Continued Discrimination in the North and West
Racial Hostility and Limited Integration
Despite hopes for equality, African Americans encountered persistent racism outside the South.
• Housing discrimination kept many Black families confined to overcrowded, underfunded neighborhoods.
• Employment discrimination relegated workers to the lowest-paid jobs and limited promotion.
• White residents often resisted Black settlement, resulting in hostility and violence.
Urban Racial Violence
Competition for jobs and housing fueled racial tension.
• The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 and similar uprisings revealed fears of demographic change and entrenched racial prejudice.
The photograph shows a crowd of men and armed National Guard soldiers standing in front of the Ogden Cafe during the 1919 Chicago Race Riot. It highlights the extent to which state forces were deployed to contain racial violence triggered by tensions over housing, jobs, and segregated public space. While the image focuses on one specific riot, it exemplifies the broader pattern of continued discrimination and racial conflict that African American migrants experienced in northern cities. Source.
White mobs targeted African American neighborhoods, illustrating that migration did not eliminate danger or hostility.
One sentence here to ensure spacing before the next definition block.
Great Migration: The large-scale movement of African Americans from the rural South to northern and western cities between roughly 1915 and 1940, driven by economic opportunity and the search for safety from racial oppression.
Cultural, Political, and Social Impact
Cultural Flourishing
African American migrants contributed to influential cultural movements.
• The Harlem Renaissance emerged from expanded urban communities, generating new literature, music, and art.
• Jazz, blues, and other cultural forms gained national audiences, reshaping American culture.
Political Realignment and Civil Rights Leadership
Migration shifted political power and laid foundations for later civil rights activism.
• Concentrated urban populations increased African American voting strength where franchise rights were protected.
• Organizations such as the NAACP grew in membership and influence, advancing legal challenges to segregation and discrimination.
• Labor organizing empowered Black workers to seek fairer conditions and wages.
Lasting Consequences
The Great Migration transformed American regions, culture, and politics, while continued discrimination revealed the depth of nationwide racial inequality. Migrants reshaped cities and laid groundwork for twentieth-century struggles for civil rights and equal opportunity.
FAQ
Women often shouldered the responsibility of organising family moves, securing housing, and managing household finances in unfamiliar urban environments.
Employment opportunities differed sharply:
• Domestic service remained the most common job for women, but industrial roles expanded during wartime.
• Women’s social networks, including churches and community groups, grew rapidly and helped anchor new migrant communities.
Their participation shaped the cultural and civic life of emerging Black neighbourhoods.
Many families relied on long-standing agricultural ties, land ownership, or community networks that made migration financially or socially risky.
Additional reasons included:
• Fear of uncertain employment prospects in cities.
• Concern about overcrowded northern housing.
• Lack of funds to pay for train travel or relocation.
• Preference for familiar cultural and religious environments.
These factors reveal that the Great Migration, while large in scale, was not universally embraced.
Employers used labour agents to target specific Southern regions, shaping which communities migrated first and in what numbers.
Industrial firms sometimes paid travel expenses or offered signing bonuses, creating routes that linked particular Southern towns with particular northern cities.
Recruitment often focused on young, able-bodied workers, influencing the age and gender composition of early migrant flows.
Migrants brought new organisational strategies developed in Southern Black churches and community groups, which strengthened political mobilisation.
They also:
• Supported reform candidates who promised fair employment and housing policies.
• Pressured local parties to address racial inequalities.
• Contributed to the rise of Black political leaders in city councils and state legislatures.
These changes shifted urban political priorities and reshaped long-term power dynamics.
African American newspapers circulated stories of higher wages, safer living conditions, and political rights available in northern cities, creating a persuasive counter-narrative to Southern oppression.
They often published letters from migrants describing their experiences, functioning as trusted community voices.
• Recruitment advertisements from northern industries appeared frequently.
• Newspapers also advised prospective migrants on travel logistics, housing options, and how to avoid exploitative labour agents.
These publications helped transform individual decisions into a coordinated, large-scale movement.
Practice Questions
(1–3 marks)
Identify and explain one significant push factor that encouraged African Americans to leave the South during the Great Migration.
Question 1 (1–3 marks)
• 1 mark for identifying a valid push factor (e.g., racial violence, Jim Crow segregation, economic exploitation through sharecropping, disenfranchisement).
• 1 mark for explaining how or why this factor encouraged migration.
• 1 additional mark for providing a clear, accurate link to the broader context of life in the early twentieth-century South.
(4–6 marks)
Explain how the Great Migration reshaped both African American life and broader urban society in the North and West, and assess the extent to which discrimination persisted despite new opportunities.
Question 2 (4–6 marks)
• 1–2 marks for explaining how the Great Migration reshaped African American life (e.g., improved wages, increased access to education, creation of urban Black communities, cultural developments).
• 1–2 marks for explaining how the migration reshaped broader urban society (e.g., demographic shifts, labour force changes, growth of new cultural movements).
• 1–2 marks for assessing the continued presence of discrimination (e.g., housing segregation, employment limits, racial violence such as the Chicago Race Riot).
Full marks require a well-supported explanation that addresses both change and continuity, using historically accurate detail.
