Knowra Great Migration Great Migration The Great Migration was the mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to cities in the North and West during the twentieth century, reshaping population, politics, and culture.
Jim Crow laws : State and local laws that enforced racial segregation and disenfranchised Black people, chiefly in the American South. Segregation and political exclusion made Southern life increasingly restrictive for Black families.
Chain migration : Migration in which people follow relatives, friends, or community members who have already moved. Established migrants supplied newcomers with information, housing, and employment contacts.
Isabel Wilkerson : An American journalist and author of The Warmth of Other Suns, a history of the Great Migration. Her oral histories trace the decisions and journeys of individual migrants.
Harlem Renaissance : A flowering of African American literature, music, visual art, and thought centered in Harlem during the 1920s. Migrants helped build the Harlem community that sustained this cultural movement.
Chicago : The largest city in Illinois, a major industrial and transportation center on Lake Michigan. Chicago became a leading destination for Black migrants from the South.
Racial violence in the United States : Violence directed at people because of race, including lynching, mob attacks, and organized intimidation. Threats and attacks pushed many Black Southerners to seek safety elsewhere.
Pull factor : A condition at a destination that attracts people to move there. Industrial wages and relative opportunity drew migrants toward Northern and Western cities.
Robert S. Abbott : An African American journalist who founded the Chicago Defender in 1905. His newspaper urged Black Southerners to consider opportunities beyond the South.
Chicago Black Renaissance : A mid-twentieth-century flourishing of African American arts and letters in Chicago. The city’s growing Black population created institutions and audiences for new artistic work.
Harlem : A neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City, with a long history as a center of Black life and culture. Harlem’s growth reflected migration to New York and helped support its cultural institutions.
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