hi
i'm clint smith and this is crash course
black american history
and today
we're talking about the great migration
you know
sometimes
moving is exciting
maybe an exciting job opportunity pulls
you to a brand new city and so you get
to move some place you've never been
or you go from being a college student
to a working adult and get to move into
the apartment of your dreams
or if you were like me
one that you shared with seven other
people
shout out to your early 20s
but sometimes
people don't leave a place simply
because they want to
but because
in one way or another
they've been pushed away
in what would become known as the great
migration which took place in the early
to mid 20th century
many black americans who lived in the
south
moved to the northern united states to
the urban south
and to the west
they did this
to find better jobs
more economic mobility
and to escape the ever-present threat of
violence
in the south
let's start the show
[Music]
i want to note up top that this episode
will address some challenging topics
like extreme violence
during the great migration large numbers
of black americans left the jim crow
south in two waves
one from around 1910 through 1940 and
another
from 1940 to 1970.
it was one of the largest domestic
migrations in american history you see
in 1910
most black americans lived in the south
90 in fact
and this makes a lot of sense because
most of slavery had been centered in the
south and even after the emancipation of
enslaved black americans many folks
stayed in the same areas where they had
previously lived but by 1940 around 1.5
million black americans had left their
homes and that percentage of black
americans in the south
had dropped to 77
and by 1970 that number would drop to 52
they mostly went to cities like chicago
illinois detroit michigan pittsburgh
pennsylvania and new york city
in my own family we had a lot of people
leave new orleans and actually move out
to the west coast settling in and around
los angeles
in the early 1900s black americans were
being both pushed out of the south
and also pulled toward the north
as for why they were pushed away from
the south
after slavery many black americans were
subjected to a physically taxing and
economically precarious system
called sharecropping
to learn more about how unfair the
system was
let's go to the thought bubble
so let's say there's a farmer
we'll call him farmer joe
maybe farmer joe or his dad or granddad
before him had a plantation where he had
enslaved workers who tended to the land
after the war was over because of the
13th amendment
farmer joe can no longer enslave those
workers so he had to find a different
arrangement in order to plant and
harvest the crops on that land
this arrangement
was known as sharecropping the way it
worked was like this
farmer joe brought in some help
they might be formerly enslaved people
or the descendants of formerly enslaved
people
or poor whites
he provided these workers with land
cabins seeds animals and the tools
needed to work on the farm from the
beginning of the season through the
harvest time
all of these things
were provided to the workers on credit
by the end of the harvest season farmer
joe had a certain expectation about how
many crops he would receive and if that
expectation wasn't met he could claim
that the workers were now even further
indebted to him
than they were before
and because of high interest rates
unpredictable harvest seasons and
deceptive agreements by the landowners
many sharecroppers found themselves in a
cycle of endless debt
that was difficult
if not impossible to escape there were
even laws in place that prevented
sharecroppers from leaving the land if
they were in debt to the landowner and
farmer joe could even send his workers
to jail for these deaths all of this
would go on to shape the racialized
prison industrial complex
thanks thoughtbubble
even when black americans own their land
factors like unpredictable weather and
pests like the boll weevil made farming
less and less sustainable
and also less profitable because so many
black americans in the south were
earning next to nothing because of the
cyclical debt the idea of finding more
stable work in the north became
increasingly appealing
stories from those who had made their
way to these other cities
trickled back down south jobs in the
north the story went created by the auto
industry meatpacking industry and steel
and iron industry were paying black
people
a lot more money
black men that were only earning 75
cents a day while working in the south
could make up to five dollars a day
working in the north
and for many
it seemed too good to pass up
another huge reason for the great
migration was the impact of jim crow and
domestic terrorism by groups like the ku
klux klan
even though the reconstruction
amendments promised black americans
freedom from slavery the right to vote
for men at least and full citizenship
with all the benefits it was supposed to
carry
many white americans
just weren't okay with that
they showed their displeasure with both
institutional and interpersonal violence
filling the lives of black southerners
with misery and terror
to start the southern united states used
jim crow laws to segregate black
communities and prevent them from having
access to any of the resources that
would make their homes neighborhoods and
communities better
as a result many black communities were
dilapidated
and generally just in poor terrible
condition what's more as we've talked
about before
black people couldn't even use the same
water fountains hospitals waiting rooms
and even cemeteries as white people
i mean you would think that racism would
at least rest with the dead
but it followed you even after you were
buried
many of these southern states used
literacy tests poll taxes and property
requirements to make sure that black
americans couldn't vote eroding the
power of the 14th and 15th amendment and
they took it to the extreme
by violently destroying black
communities
think the wilmington north carolina
riots of 1898
and the atlanta riots of 1906.
there were groups whose main goal was to
maintain white supremacy and black
subordination in the south
who used to beat harass and lynch black
people with unsettling frequency
other white people who were not
necessarily affiliated with these groups
also both watched and participated in
these violent acts
in fact
many people used to attend lynchings
as family events
this violence prompted black people
to literally run for their lives to the
north
and the west
some have argued that because of this
we should actually think of the great
migration
as a sort of refugee crisis
in her award-winning book the warmth of
other sons the pulitzer prize-winning
journalist
isabel wilkerson
writes
they traveled deep into far-flung
regions of their own country
and in some cases clear across the
continent
thus
the great migration had more in common
with the vast movements of refugees from
famine
war and genocide in other parts of the
world
where oppressed people
whether fleeing 21st century darfur or
19th century ireland
go great distances
journey across rivers
deserts and oceans or as far as it takes
to reach safety
with the hope that life
will be better
wherever they land
newspapers like the chicago defender and
other informal networks like church
groups benevolent societies and black
pullman porters
told the stories of many black americans
who were thriving in the north
and that
encouraged many black southerners to
take the risk and come join them but
once they arrived there
things weren't just
magically better
often times
things remained really tough
poverty was widespread
and segregation was still in place
racism while it may have looked
different in these urban cities
wasn't just limited to the south
so black folks established benevolent
societies through churches and other
organizations to help new migrants and
their families adjust to life in the
north
another fascinating part of the story of
the great migration
is that many white people in the south
as more and more black people began to
leave
actually got nervous
and were worried that
too many black people were leaving see
as terribly as black people were treated
on a social and political level
the economic infrastructure of the south
relied heavily on black people's labor
some employers increased their wages to
stem the tide but most of the time
that wasn't enough
white southerners got so desperate that
they tried to pressure newspapers into
telling more negative stories about
black life in the north they would block
trains and buses filled with migrants
from leaving the south and even beat and
intimidated people for attempting to
leave
i mean
think about it
you were beaten if you stayed
and you were beaten if you tried to
leave
that was black life in a nutshell
something to remember is that
no matter what
it is never easy to leave home
though much of the land black people
lived on in the early 20th century
carried a lot of pain
it also carried
a lot of memories
it was part of their lineage
it was part of their history
leaving home
isn't easy
but that also shows you how desperate
people were
for both economic opportunity
and for safety
and while it wasn't perfect
for many
the north and the west
did provide that
people were able to get economic
opportunities
that they
otherwise just wouldn't have had
and while to be sure
violence against black folks
did exist in the north
it wasn't nearly as extensive
as it was below the mason-dixon line
what's more the great migration created
huge hubs of black urban spaces and
culture
it would go on to give us some of our
best artists musicians
and writers
the great migration
was nuanced complicated
and dynamic
and the story we tell about it
should reflect that complexity
it's not just a story of what was done
to black people
but serves as an example
of black americans taking control of
their lives
identities
and destinies
in a country that was constantly
attempting to strip all of those things
away from them
the writer isabelle wilkerson puts it
best over the decades
perhaps the wrong questions have been
asked about the great migration
perhaps it is not a question of whether
the migrants brought good or ill to the
cities they fled to
or were pushed or pulled to their
destinations
but a question
of how they summon the courage to leave
in the first place
or
how they found the will to press beyond
the forces against them
and the faith in a country that had
rejected them for so long
by their actions
they did not dream the american dream
they wheeled it into being
by definition of their own choosing
they did not ask to be accepted
but declared themselves the americans
that perhaps few others recognized
but that they had always been deep
within their hearts
thanks for watching
i'll see you next time
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