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First great migration 500 word essay example free
Conclusion on the great migration
First great migration 500 word essay example free
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The Great Migration period during the age of Jim Crow was a time of major movement of African Americans within the United States. Between the years 1910 to 1930 a huge population increase occurred within African American society that ultimately caused the beginning stages of the Great Migration. As a result, this population increase of blacks influenced them to seek for better opportunity in work, land, and safety for their families. Outside of those reasons one major factor that forced African Americans to migrate was the influence of Jim Crow laws and practices. Jim Crow was still present during this period and caused colored individuals to seek for more habitable areas outside the South being that lynching was at its worst, white mobs attacked blacks, and living conditions were mediocre for African Americans compared to that of a middle class white family. In this paper I will argue that the Jim Crow era was driving force behind the main factors that shaped the Great Migration; and those factors are the ideas of wanting to seek better work opportunity, living conditions, and over all safety for ones self and family. During the beginning stages of the Great Migration period the South inhabited 90 percent of the African American population by the year 1900. Jim Crow practices and ideologies were in full effect and sadly many poor colored individuals suffered at the hands of the white man. Lynchings, assault, murder, and corrupt law making was considered a daily practice amongst white southerners up to this point in time for one sole purpose, and that is to make any successful colored person struggle by any means necessary. According to Kevin Boyle, “white [individuals] thought black life exciting because it was ‘primitive’ and ... ... middle of paper ... ... more of a struggle. In conclusion, the Great Migration was influenced by Jim Crow policies and the major factors that resulted from the influence of Jim Crow to cause blacks to migrate were fear and the desire of wanting to improve one’s life. Sadly, migrants did not receive what they expected when moving north but some improvements were present compared to when living the south. They escaped the torment of lynching and mob violence was not as bad. But due to the presence of Jim Crow practices and ideologies, African Americans were subjected to the same treatment they received in the south, just not as harsh as it was in the south. I believe that Jim Crow indeed influenced migrants in a way that they were only going based off the impulses of fear and sadly them having to live a life of fear caused them to ultimately rely on themselves to achieve true happiness.
The original edition of The Strange Career of Jim Crow had as its thesis that segregation and Jim Crow Laws were a relative late comer in race relations in the South only dating to the late 1880s and early 1890s. Also part of that thesis is that race relations in the South were not static, that a great deal of change has occurred in the dynamics of race relations. Woodward presents a clear argument that segregation in the South did not really start forming until the 1890s. One of the key components of his argument is the close contact of the races during slavery and the Reconstruction period. During slavery the two races while not living harmoniously with each other did have constant contact with each other in the South. This c...
Through his research, Osofksy is able to conclude that there was a decline in the Black population leading up to the Civil War. In 1825 there were 12,559 Blacks living in New York, in 1865 9,943 Blacks were living in New York City. But by 1900, due to the great migrations of free Blacks from the south, the Black population expanded, and over fifty-three percent were born outside of the State. The tension created by this migration was not only between the new Blacks and the White population of New York, but also between the ex...
According to Hunter, the period between 1877 and 1915 is critical to understanding the social transformations in most southern cities and complicating this transformation are the issues of race, class, and gender. The examination of the lives of black domestic workers reveals the complexity of their struggles to keep their autonomy with white employers and city officials. For example, African-American women built institutions and frequently quit their jobs in response to the attempts by southern whites to control their labor and mobility. Hunter carefully situates these individual tactics of resistance in the New South capitalist development and attempts by whites to curtail the political and social freedoms of emancipated slaves. African-American women migrating to Atlanta after the Emancipation found themselve... ...
Cleveland’s black population was quite small before the “Great Migration” in 1915, but then began to gradually increase. This meant that black associations and leadership depended very much on white support. The socioeconomic position of blacks, however, at the same time, got worse as whites got stricter on discriminatory control over employment and public places. After 1915, Cleveland’s black population grew quickly, starting racist trends. One of the results was segregation of the living conditions of blacks, their jobs, and in social aspects. As isolation increased, however, this began the growth of new leaders and associations that responded to the needs of the ghettos. By 1930, the black ghetto had expanded; Cleveland’s blacks had increased class stratification in their community, as well as an increasing sense of cultural harmony in response to white prejudice.
...ty and their survival as a group in society because of restraint from the federal government in the ability to litigate their plight in Court. The Author transitions the past and present signatures of Jim Crow and the New Jim Crow with the suggestion that the New Jim Crow, by mass incarceration and racism as a whole, is marginalizes and relegates Blacks to residential, educational and constitutionally endowed service to Country.
Eric Arnesen’s book, Black Protest and the Great Migration: A Brief History with Documents, successfully portrays the struggles of early life for African Americans as well as why they migrated to the north in the years of World War I. During the first world war, the lives of as many as 500,000 African Americans changed dramatically as southern blacks migrated to the north. The migration escalated a shift in the population from extremely rural people to urban people in the years following the second world war. Those who lived in the south, particularly black southerners, had many reasons for why they wanted to move to the north. Due to the failure of Reconstruction, which was supposed to re-build the South after the Union victory and grant slaves
The author skirts around the central issue of racism by calling it a “class struggle” within the white population of Boston during the 1960s and 1970s. Formisano discuses the phenomenon known as “white flight”, where great numbers of white families left the cities for the suburbs. This was not only for a better lifestyle, but a way to distance themselves from the African Americans, who settled in northern urban areas following the second Great Migration.
During 1910-1970 the great migration was taking place, which was the movement of southern African American’s to the north/northern cities. The great migration was an event that seemed as if it was unstoppable and that it was going to happen. In the South African American’s faced racial discrimination, sharecropping, bad working conditions, low wages, racial segregation and political detriments. This is all supported by documents 1-4. The great migration was an event which helped improve the conditions for African Americans in America.
The Strange Career of Jim Crow, by C. Van Woodward, traces the history of race relations in the United States from the mid and late nineteenth century through the twentieth century. In doing so Woodward brings to light significant aspects of Reconstruction that remain unknown to many today. He argues that the races were not as separate many people believe until the Jim Crow laws. To set up such an argument, Woodward first outlines the relationship between Southern and Northern whites, and African Americans during the nineteenth century. He then breaks down the details of the injustice brought about by the Jim Crow laws, and outlines the transformation in American society from discrimination to Civil Rights. Woodward’s argument is very persuasive because he uses specific evidence to support his opinions and to connect his ideas. Considering the time period in which the book and its editions were written, it should be praised for its insight into and analysis of the most important social issue in American history.
After liberation, most of the African Americans operated roles as sharecroppers and tenant farmers. “And Black men’s feet learned roads. Some said goodbye cheerfully…others fearfully, with terrors of unknown dangers in their mouths…others in their eagerness for distance said nothing…” (Takaki 311). The migration to the north guaranteed blacks opportunities toward employment, which led them to obtain sharper wages. Unfortunately, the northern part of the United States was not how immigrants perceived it to be: lack of segregation.
As the United States developed and grew, upward mobility was central to the American dream. It was the unstated promise that no matter where you started, you had the chance to grow and proceed beyond your initial starting point. In the years following the Civil War, the promise began to fade. People of all races strived to gain the representation, acknowledgement and place in this society. To their great devastation, this hope quickly dwindled. Social rules were set out by the white folk, and nobody could rise above their social standing unless they were seen fit to be part of the white race. The social group to be impacted the most by this “social rule” was the African Americans. Black folk and those who were sympathetic to the idea of equal rights to blacks were targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. (Burton, 1998) The turning point in North Carolina politics was the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898. It was a very bold and outrageous statement from the white supremacists to the black folk. The Democratic white supremacists illegally seized power from the local government and destroyed the neighborhood by driving out the African Americans and turning it from a black-majority to a white-majority city. (Class Discussion 10/3/13) This event developed the idea that even though an African American could climb a ladder to becoming somebody in his or her city, he or she will never become completely autonomous in this nation. Charles W. Chesnutt discusses the issue of social mobility in his novel The Marrow of Tradition. Olivia Carteret, the wife of a white supremacist is also a half-sister to a Creole woman, Janet Miller. As the plot develops, we are able to see how the social standing of each woman impacts her everyday life, and how each woman is ...
Throughout the course of human history, civilizations time and time again have attempted to obtain the solidity and happiness found in the United States. In order to seize this stability, the U.S. faced a great variety of hurdles within its history, but also tasted the fruits of prosperity and victory. By far, the most spectacular of these ages of wealth was the Roaring 20’s. After leaving World War I with few losses, the U.S. dove deep into the evolution of pleasure and also focused on helping immigrants from around the world achieve the coveted American Dream. After this joyous age of diversity died, the reign of Jim Crow Era emerged like never before, this era of discrimination served as
The Great Migration, which lasted from 1910 to 1930, was the first mass movement of African Americans from the South to the North. There was one main factor that led to new job opportunities which attracted many African Americans to industrialized cites in the North. The occurrence of World War I in Europe had increased U.S. factories and factory productions as European nations, involved in the war, depended on the United States to replenish their supplies. Likewise, the war decreased laborers in the United States as it abridged the migration of many European immigrants to the U.S. as well as toke many citizens as soldiers which caused a massive vacancy in the work field. Philip Bonner, from the University of the Witwatersrand, explained this phenomena as he said, “It was only the outbreak of the first World War cutting off the flo...
The Great Migration was a time where more then 6 million African Americans migrated North of the United States during 1910-1920. The Northern Parts of the United States, where African Americans mainly moved to was Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia and Cleveland. They migrated because of the work on railroads and the labor movement in factories. They wanted a better life style and felt that by moving across the United States, they would live in better living conditions and have more job opportunities. Not only did they chose to migrate for a better lifestyle but they were also forced out of their homes by unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregation laws. They were forced to work in poor working conditions and compete for
The Great Migration was the movement of two million blacks out of the Southern United States to the Midwest, Northeast and West between 1910 and 1940. In 1900, about ninety percent of African Americans resided in formed slave holding states in the South. Beginning in 1910, the African American population increased by nearly twenty percent in Northern states, mostly in the biggest cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland. African Americans left the rural south because they believed they could escape the discrimination and racial segregation of Jim Crow laws by seeking refuge in the North. Some examples of Jim Crow laws include the segregation of public schools, public places and public transportation, and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants and drinking fountains for whites and blacks (“The History of Jim Crow). In addition, economic depression due to the boll weevil infestation of Southern cotton fields in the late 1910s and the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 forced many sharecroppers to look for other emplo...