Deep dive
The Great Migration
The decades-long movement of six million Black Southerners that reshaped America.
11 min read
Between 1916 and 1970, roughly six million Black Americans left the rural South for cities in the North, Midwest, and West, fleeing jim-crow terror and seeking work.
The migration transformed American cities and culture — fueling the harlem-renaissance and the rise of new musical forms — even as arrivals met redlining and segregation in the North. It is one of the largest internal migrations in human history.
Sources & further reading
The web
Connections to other moments, systems, and investigations — the links rarely drawn together.
- led to·ThreadThe Harlem Renaissance
The migration concentrated the talent that produced the Renaissance.