Part II, Great Migration
Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011
Lecture, Week Four: Great Migration
A. What is the Great Migration?1
Out of the South
Figure 1: Schomburg Center
for Research in Black
Culture, General Research
and Reference Division,
The Chicago Commission
on Race Relations, The
Negro in Chicago: A Study of
Race Relations and a Race
Riot (Chicago: The
University of Chicago
Press, 1922)
The migration was a watershed in the history of African America. As late as 19l0, seven million African
Americans resided in the South, while fewer than one million lived in all other regions of the country
combined.
1
Images and text included in this section from Inmotion: The African American Migration Experience, a
wealth of information for us available at [Link]
Part II, Great Migration
Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011
Moving North
"Migrants came north in thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands - from the docks of Norfolk,
Savannah, Jacksonville, Tampa, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston: from the cotton fields of
Mississippi, and the coal mines and steel-mills of Alabama and Tennessee; from workshops and wash-tubs
and brickyards and kitchens they came, until the number, by conservative estimate, went well over the
million and a half mark." James Weldon Johnson, Black
Manhattan.
Figure 2: Schomburg Center for Research
in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints
Division, The Chicago Commission on
Race Relations, The Negro in Chicago: A
Study of Race Relations and a Race Riot
(Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1922)
Part II, Great Migration
Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011
Industrial Night
Figure 3:
Schomburg Center
for Research in
Black Culture,
Photographs and
Prints Division,
WH Bass
Over 400,000 people left between 1916 and 1918, at an average rate of sixteen thousand per month, five
hundred per day. For many, the move north signaled the beginning of regular urban industrial employment
with higher wages and fixed hours.
Part II, Great Migration
Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011
A Crowd in Harlem
Figure 4: Schomburg Center
for Research in Black
Culture, Photographs and
Prints Division
The exodus that started during World War I diminished the overwhelming southern concentration of the
population. From its beginning in 1916 to its end in 1930, the Great Migration sent nearly one-tenth of the
African-American population from the South to the North. By 1930, 89 percent of the northern black
population was urban, while 32 percent of southern African Americans lived in cities. In the country as a
whole, 44 percent of African Americans were urban by the end of the Great Migration.
Overview, also from Inmotion: The African American Migration:
Migration has been central in the making of African-American history and culture and in the total
American experience. The transatlantic slave trade was fundamental to the development of the colonial
economy; and after the War of Independence, the domestic slave trade was the engine that enabled the
expansion of the cotton economy not only within the United States but also, through trade, to the
international scene. In the twentieth century, black migrations from the South were crucial to America's
urban industrial development. They transformed a southern, rural population into a national, urban one, and
the black presence throughout the country has influenced American legal systems as well as social and
cultural policies and practices.
In addition, the cultures of black migrants from the South, the Caribbean, Haiti, and Africa have had an
extraordinary impact on American arts and culture.
Part II, Great Migration
Shannon Carter, PhD Spring 2011
B. Great Migration, as depicted by Wright’s 12 Million Black Voices
Richard Wright published 12 Million Black Voices not long after the Great Migration
has subsided and Great Depression had ended. Also not long after he completed his
tour as writer for the Federal Writers Project and published his incredibly successful
memoir Native Son.
12 Million Black Voices is, essentially, a remix. In the Discussion Areas, let’s explore
how. Consider the origins of the images he used to tell his story. Consider his
research, and how that research informed the project. Consider the overarching
narrative he was attempting to depict in this multimodal text, and explore the various
ways in which images worked together with text to communicate his recurring
themes and key arguments.