Great Migration

Causes of the Great Migration

After the Civil War and despite the end of slavery, some southern Whites continued to engage in racial targeting and lynching, especially in the post-Reconstruction era during the close of the 19th century. African Americans sought an alternative to the harsh life in the segregated South, where Jim Crow laws left them disenfranchised and without recourse when they experienced blatant discrimination and violence. Many African Americans envisioned the North as a place where they could escape these conditions and experience a better life.

During the latter half of the 19th century, changes took place that drastically altered the agrarian ways of life and production. New technology, manufacturing, and mass production contributed to the reshaping of the modern city. Immigrants, predominantly from European countries, poured into the United States, searching for cheap, habitable land and factory jobs. The industrial era also spurred the development of jobs for migrants from the South. In contrast, the share-cropping system implemented in the southern United States after the Civil War left many African Americans destitute. An infestation of boll weevils in the early years of the 20th century damaged the cotton fields, and devastating floods worsened conditions further. Moving to the North offered many African Americans the opportunity to find work and earn wages that were considerably better than what they could find in the South.

Another factor in migration was the role of labor agents who represented large companies such as railroads and recruited African Americans in the South for jobs in the North. Especially during World War I, when many White men left factory jobs to fight in the war, labor agents persistently exploited southern Blacks. They made promises of work and better living conditions that enticed Blacks from the South to move out of a region that offered them very little in comparison with the promising northern city life. The war also brought about the need for more products and war materials that were sold to European countries, and as a result labor agents hired masses of Blacks to maintain productivity levels. Labor agents also played a fundamental role in overcoming labor union strikes in the North by hiring southern Blacks to cross picket lines.

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