What were the push and pull factors that led to the Great Migration?
What Were the Consequences of the Great Migration?
Life in the Cities
Besides the white-black competition for employment in the cities, there was also white-black competition for living space. Prior to the migration, African Americans were often dispersed in small clusters in several city neighborhoods, where they lived in relative obscurity and invisibility. But soon white opposition effectively closed the market to newcomers, thereby creating ghettos. Whites also fled the areas where black migrants concentrated "as if from a plague." City government, banks, and realtors conspired to keep African Americans' residential opportunities constricted.
On a single day in Chicago, real-estate brokers had over six hundred black families applying for housing, with only fifty-three units available. When the migrants did find housing accommodations, they were usually dilapidated and barely habitable. Landlords maximized their profits by dividing larger units, with no alterations, into several tiny flats. Black neighborhoods became seriously overcrowded as a result. In Cleveland, the population density in black areas was thirty-five to forty persons per acre, while citywide it was only half that.
The combination of overcrowding, poverty, and poor access to quality medical treatment - even in the North there were few black physicians and hospitals were generally segregated - ensured a variety of serious health problems in African-American communities. Working long, arduous hours in badly ventilated spaces, coming home to equally unhealthy conditions, getting insufficient rest and nutrition made migrants particularly susceptible to many infectious illnesses. African Americans death rates were consistently higher than those of whites. Children were even more at risk. A shocking number died before the age of ten; more than a quarter of these succumbed before their first birthday. The mortality rate for black infants was twice that of white babies. The deaths soared during the steamy summer months in overcrowded slums.
Besides the white-black competition for employment in the cities, there was also white-black competition for living space. Prior to the migration, African Americans were often dispersed in small clusters in several city neighborhoods, where they lived in relative obscurity and invisibility. But soon white opposition effectively closed the market to newcomers, thereby creating ghettos. Whites also fled the areas where black migrants concentrated "as if from a plague." City government, banks, and realtors conspired to keep African Americans' residential opportunities constricted.
On a single day in Chicago, real-estate brokers had over six hundred black families applying for housing, with only fifty-three units available. When the migrants did find housing accommodations, they were usually dilapidated and barely habitable. Landlords maximized their profits by dividing larger units, with no alterations, into several tiny flats. Black neighborhoods became seriously overcrowded as a result. In Cleveland, the population density in black areas was thirty-five to forty persons per acre, while citywide it was only half that.
The combination of overcrowding, poverty, and poor access to quality medical treatment - even in the North there were few black physicians and hospitals were generally segregated - ensured a variety of serious health problems in African-American communities. Working long, arduous hours in badly ventilated spaces, coming home to equally unhealthy conditions, getting insufficient rest and nutrition made migrants particularly susceptible to many infectious illnesses. African Americans death rates were consistently higher than those of whites. Children were even more at risk. A shocking number died before the age of ten; more than a quarter of these succumbed before their first birthday. The mortality rate for black infants was twice that of white babies. The deaths soared during the steamy summer months in overcrowded slums.
The Red Summer
The Quest for Political Power
Their painful experience of disenfranchisement in the South, coupled with their belief in the power of the ballot, led many migrants to register to vote almost immediately after arriving in the North. Having received so little benefit from their tax dollars for so long, African Americans now sought political representation. This new electorate brought with them bitter memories of political exclusion. Some had witnessed firsthand the violence and intimidation used against would-be black voters; many others had been told of them. Most, if not all, of these negative events were perpetrated under the auspices of the Democratic Party. A laborer originally from Alabama told an investigator that he could never vote for a Democrat as long as he kept his memory.
Chicago was one of the first cities where African Americans attained a measure of political influence. A number of black politicians rose to prominence. Perhaps the most outstanding was Oscar DePriest, who became Chicago's first black councilman in 1915. In 1928, in a defining moment in African America's political history, DePriest became the first black elected to the United States House of Representatives in the twentieth century.
Chicago was one of the first cities where African Americans attained a measure of political influence. A number of black politicians rose to prominence. Perhaps the most outstanding was Oscar DePriest, who became Chicago's first black councilman in 1915. In 1928, in a defining moment in African America's political history, DePriest became the first black elected to the United States House of Representatives in the twentieth century.
Three Different Perspectives
Marcus Garvey
Marcus Garvey inspired a sense of pride and self-worth among Africans and the African diaspora amid widespread poverty, discrimination, and colonialism. He believed that African-Americans would never achieve financial, social and political equality in the United States. Garvey was a Pan-Africanist, separatist , and an African nationalist. In the wake of the First World War, Garvey called for the formation of "a United Africa for the Africans of the World" UNIA promoted the view that Africa was the natural homeland of the African diaspora. Garvey advocated for the "Back to Africa Movement." Advising African descendants world wide to move back to Africa to achieve political, social and economic independence from whites. |
Booker T. Washington
Booker T. Washington, educator, reformer and the most influential black leader of his time (1856-1915) preached a philosophy of self-help, racial solidarity and accommodation. He urged blacks to accept discrimination for the time being and concentrate on elevating themselves through hard work and material prosperity. He believed in education in the crafts, industrial and farming skills and the cultivation of the virtues of patience, enterprise and thrift. This, he said, would win the respect of whites and lead to African Americans being fully accepted as citizens and integrated into all strata of society. |
W.E.B. Du Bois
Du Bois advocated political action and a civil rights agenda (he helped found the NAACP). In addition, he argued that social change could be accomplished by developing the small group of college-educated blacks he called “the Talented Tenth:” “The Negro Race, like all races, is going to be saved by its exceptional men. The problem of education then, among Negroes, must first of all deal with the “Talented Tenth.” It is the problem of developing the best of this race that they may guide the Mass away from the contamination and death of the worst.” Dubois' efforts directly led to the rise of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950'd and 60's that would later change American Society. |