Why Did Six Million Black Americans Leave the South? | Great Migration History

We typically learn that the Great Migration was an economic story of Black Americans leaving the South to move up North to acquire better jobs. Which is true, however, it leaves out an important question. Why were six million people willing to leave home?

Between 1910 and 1970, about six million Black Americans moved from the South to northern, midwestern and western states. The National Archives describes the Great Migration as one of the largest movements of people in United States history. The opportunity for better jobs was a big factor. World War I and World War II created a big demand for industrial labor. Not only were Black Americans looking for greater economic opportunities, but they were also trying to flee racial violence and hopefully know a freedom they couldn’t in the South.

Historical-style image illustrating the Great Migration, with a U.S. map showing migration routes from Southern states to cities including Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Oakland. Below, Black families carrying luggage wait beside a train.

Black Americans were leaving a South that had spent decades dismantling many of the freedoms that should’ve been guaranteed after slavery. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery. The 14th Amendment established citizenship and equal protection. The 15th Amendment gave Black men the right to vote. During Reconstruction, Black men voted and Black politicians won elections. The Black community built schools, created institutions, and Black families were able to buy property.

That progress produced a violent political response. After Reconstruction collapsed, Southern states created Jim Crow laws. Black citizens were pushed out of elections through poll taxes, literacy tests, complicated registration requirements, white primaries and intimidation. Segregation was imposed throughout public life. Predatory systems such as sharecropping and tenant farming left many Black families dependent on white landowners with little opportunity to accumulate wealth.

The Equal Justice Initiative has documented thousands of racial terror lynchings during the decades after Reconstruction. Lynching functioned as terrorism intended to maintain racial hierarchy. Black people could be attacked for attempting to vote, challenging racial customs or becoming successful. Just being accused of something by a white person could lead to lynchings. A lynching was an example to every Black family in the surrounding community of what could happen to them.

The Equal Justice Initiative has explicitly connected racial terror to the forced migration of Black Americans, describing millions of people who fled the South as refugees. Legally, these people weren’t refugees or asylum seekers. They were American citizens moving within the borders of the United States. There was no international border to cross and no foreign government from which they were requesting protection.

If you think about why they were leaving, though, it sounds a lot like asylum. They wanted physical safety, better economic opportunities, their children educated, the ability to vote, and greater control over where they worked and how they lived. They wanted a government that might provide some kind of protection when their rights were violated. That’s much more than just pursuing a job.

Why the migration accelerated

The conditions pushing Black Americans out of the South had existed for decades. What changed during World War I was the availability of somewhere to go. They needed workers to replace those who went to war. Immigration also slowed because of the war, so employers needed people to replace those workers as well. Railroads, steel mills, automobile factories, meatpacking plants and other industries offered wages that many Southern agricultural workers couldn’t earn at home.

Information traveled through Black communities. Newspapers reported northern job opportunities. People who had already migrated wrote home. Relatives helped relatives find housing and employment. Migration routes developed along railroad lines connecting Southern communities with northern cities. Chicago became closely connected with migrants from Mississippi. Detroit attracted thousands of Black Southerners seeking automobile and manufacturing jobs. Families settled in New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and other industrial cities.

World War II created another large demand for workers, and this time migration expanded farther west. Families moved to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle. By 1970, about six million Black Americans had relocated in the Great Migration. America’s racial geography was transformed.

The North wasn’t racial equality

While the North did offer more opportunities, it was not the picture of racial equality. Black families were not escaping racism and violence. Black migrants encountered discrimination in employment and housing. Restrictive covenants prevented Black families from purchasing homes in certain neighborhoods. Redlining and discriminatory lending practices restricted access to mortgages. Black neighborhoods became overcrowded partly because Black families were prevented from moving elsewhere.

The mass influx of Black migrants also increased anger and violence among white people. During the Red Summer of 1919, Black communities experienced racial violence across the country. Chicago experienced one of the most notorious outbreaks.

The difference from living in the South was more room to breathe. Black Americans could earn higher wages. Their children could have greater educational opportunities. Voting rights were generally more accessible than they had been under Southern Jim Crow. Larger Black populations also created political power. After Reconstruction, Black representation in Congress disappeared. Between 1901 and 1929, there were no Black members of Congress. As Black migrants concentrated in northern cities, they created voting blocs capable of influencing elections. In 1928, Chicago voters elected Oscar De Priest to Congress. He became the first Black member of Congress in nearly three decades. Migration had turned population movement into political power.

What six million people changed

The Great Migration reshaped virtually every part of American life. Black communities expanded in Chicago, Detroit, Harlem, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and dozens of other cities. Black newspapers gained national influence. Churches, businesses and civic organizations expanded. Political organizations gained new constituencies.

The Harlem Renaissance developed during this time as well. Blues, jazz, literature and other forms of Black culture spread through cities connected by migration. Southern traditions traveled with families and evolved within new urban communities. The migration also changed the political conditions surrounding the Civil Rights Movement. Black voters outside the South could exercise political influence that many Southern Black citizens had been systematically denied.

The Great Migration didn’t solve the problems that caused it. Housing segregation in northern cities helped produce racial wealth disparities that remain today. Neighborhoods created through redlining and restrictive housing policies influenced where families accumulated property, where governments invested resources and which schools children attended. Those consequences accumulated over generations.

What we leave out when we call it migration

The word migration sounds neutral. People move all the time. Six million people don’t leave a region over several generations without significant motivation pushing them. Some Black Americans left because they wanted higher wages or better schools, and some wanted the excitement and possibility of city life. There wasn’t one Great Migration experience. For some, staying was simply too dangerous and intolerable.

The language of refuge is worth considering in this case. They weren’t legally seeking asylum or crossing an international border. They were American citizens trying to find somewhere inside the United States where American citizenship might provide more of what it promised.

The Great Migration was the story of what happens when a government allows millions of its own citizens to live under conditions severe enough that leaving home becomes one of their best available options. Six million Black Americans moved.

We know where they went. The more important history is why they thought they needed to leave.

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