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Archive 1

LOL, seriously?

 "African Americans moved as individuals or small family groups. There was no government assistance, but often northern industries, such as the railroads, meatpacking, and stockyards, sometimes paid for transportation and relocation."

So the northern industries just paid a bunch of money to bring blacks north out of the goodness of their hearts, right? Everyone knows how progressive and charitably-minded those 19th century industries were. How kind of them. 

  "The pull of jobs in the north was strengthened by the efforts of labor agents sent by northern businessmen to recruit southern workers.[19] Northern companies offered special incentives to encourage black workers to relocate, including free transportation and low-cost housing.[13]"

Oh, you mean they were only paying for their travel because they wanted them as workers. I see. But this, of course, was just because their forward-thinking and progressive policies, whereby they were determined to make sure that all races and nationalities were equally represented in their labor force, right? I mean, why ELSE would northern industries be going down south and specifically SEEKING black people, even paying them to come north to work for them? I just can't think of any reason...

I mean, if I was a totally cynical asshole I'd almost suspect that they were seeking out black labor because it was available at very low cost. But that would just be mean to say; I mean, who wants to hear that you could hire black factory labor for cheaper than an Italian or Irish immigrant? Almost as cheap as a Pole even. But I'd probably somehow get accused of racism if I brought that up.

BTW, only modern Americans could take the natural tendency for new immigrants to stick together with like people, and the natural way those with money can buy houses in better neighborhoods and those without can't and somehow word it so it becomes "discrimination". No, skin color aside, they were poor. Rich people don't want to live in the middle of a housing project, not even in the name of "equality". What's more, most poor people aren't interested in living between $10M townhouses. Poor European immigrants tended to crowd into inner city slums (and most of them worked their way out within a generation). Poor white Americans also tended to crowd into poorer neighborhoods. That's how society works, it's not "discrimination". I grew up with poor people, and I don't blame people for moving away when they get the money. Screw mandatory socialized housing, and screw everyone's "right" to live in the city if they want to. If you don;t like the crowded conditions, the crime, the noise, move elsewhere. Your ancestors moved TO the city with a lot less. AnnaGoFast (talk) 00:46, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

The conversation about race in America

President Obama asked for a new "conversation" about race in America. Many of us hoped that after his election that would finally happen. African American scholars and intellectuals like HL Gates and Cornell West had asked for it for decades. It still hasn't happened. It remains the third rail of American discourse. I'm protected by tenure, but I actually have to advise my students (who, in San Francisco, are as diverse as it gets) not to casually chat about these topics at work. Yes, this article is timid, but you can't expect Wikipedia to be braver than the country it's part of. I assume that what President Obama had on his mind is that, when there is no public conversation, there will still be private ones. When topics cannot be frankly discussed in public, they still will be discussed in private, where only one's own clique talks. No light gets in from outside. If anything, in the clique, we reinforce each other's fears. Gossip, rumor and innuendo which would not survive a genuine public debate flourish. So many things are getting better in America, but I'd have to say that freedom of debate isn't. It's shrinking, even on campus, where it used to be enshrined. Don't expect to find it on Wikipedia. It is unrealistic to ask. Profhum (talk) 05:31, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

You're certainly correct about freedom of debate vanishing, particularly on campuses...it's hard to argue a point when only ideas that don't disturb or offend anyone belonging to any sort of minority are allowed...but the problem with "a new/real conversation/debate on the subject of X" is usually doublespeak for "we can finally tell those losers the way it REALLY is and they'll be forced to listen". That's what I've seen every time. It's the exact same thing when people say "can't Americans all just come together/unite and live in harmony?" They really mean "why don't you wrong-headed people finally see the light and come over to the Side of Good". How many people do you know who are willing to "come together" with a person who believes in White Pride? You want to live next door to a trailer full of loud, drunk rednecks with big pickups and loud parties who go shooting out in the backyard every evening? I'm not. Nor am I interested in living next door to a typical inner-city housing project. Yeah, I know, racist, right? How dare I, etc, etc. Assume we could actually have "a real debate", in the literal sense of the word: what exactly do you think that would accomplish? You thought that just because Obama got elected that suddenly all the ignorant white hicks and blue-collar janitors would sit down and say "hey, you know, they totally scored big points in that debate" (and who is doing all this "debating"? Do we elect representative? Do I find some black guy in the street and debate him? Celebrities? How do we compensate for varying intelligence and education levels? Or were you actually thinking of leaving this all to the politicians and getting something useful out of it?). I think it's unrealistic to expect more than a few people to be swayed by any "debate", even if their side is totally crushed logically speaking. That's because most racism isn't a rational thing. There aren't many people who actually believe deep down that whites are better. Sure there are some, but most "racists" out there are acting on irrational fears and bitterness. You don't "cure" someone like that by staging a televised "debate" and crushing their side. You don't even convince them by coming up to them in a bar and personally defeating them in a debate. People hear what they want to hear, and tht's true for people of all races. I don't know why you thought Obama being elected would change anything at all. It's not magic. I begin to suspect this whole thing was just an excuse for you to get up and say something that sounded "profound and deep" but didn't actually mean much t all. Which is pretty typical. People love to get up and make a nice speech full of the appropriate keywords about diversity and tolerance and openmindedness and community, ad nauseum, but they only rarely actually say anything useful or constructive. AnnaGoFast (talk) 00:18, 1 January 2018 (UTC)

Phraseology

"Because changes were concentrated in the cities, urban tensions rose as African Americans and new or recent European immigrants, also chiefly from rural societies, competed for jobs and housing with native working class Americans."

What is meant by "native working class Americans"? My guess is "white Northerners". For surely the black migrants from the Southern US would count as "native working class Americans". (Native American in this context must mean Americans born in the US, rather than aboriginal Indians). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.25.193 (talk) 21:30, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that was for native white working class - trying to show competition between people who had been there somewhat longer and the new migrants from the South and immigrants from Europe. Cities were expanding so rapidly that it was a tumultuous time. I added white and tried to clarify.--Parkwells (talk) 15:55, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

"In 2005, most of the African American population fled New Orleans, Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. Many moved to cities such as Baton Rouge, Louisiana, while others scattered over the nation."

I question this even being in this article. I don't know if the mass exodus after Katrina would:

1) be endemic to only the African-American population

2) be characterized as a "migration" instead of a "flight" or "evacuation"

3) be caused by similar reasons (better paying jobs, better way of life) as the the other two migrations mentioned on the page.

Guesswork and inventiveness

Terrorists ran amok in the southern states, slaying Negroes. There were no law-enforcement people who obeyed the law and apprehended the killers of Negroes who could do little other than bury those who had been killed. The imagined "facts" in this article never existed. 71.253.34.205 21:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

jim crow now heads the lineup, so this complaint seems to be resolved. would detail about the regrowth of the Klan from 1915 on be appropriate to this subject, or was that more of a symptom than a cause? 71.248.115.187 04:54, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

The text in this page deserves cleanup. The text does not "flow", seems to be cobbled together from disparate sources. There's much emphasis on Katrina (a recent phenomena) and scarce historical and statistical references for the "real" migration on the start of the 20th century. CarlosRibeiro 13:25, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Reasons for Migration

The section titled "Reasons for Migration" at the moment is comprised only of an anecdote about migration to Nebraska. This anecdote is probably too specific to be included on this page. Furthermore, it only barely describes one minor reason for migration (coverage of the migration in Omaha newspapers). Since push/pull factors are described earlier on the page, this section seems unnecessary as well as uninformative. I'm taking it out.

Second Migration

I think we need to see some kind of source here. I am not saying this isn't going on, but is it on the same magnitude as the first migration? I don't know about that, and Id like to see something to back it up.

Example of city affected by migration

This section strikes me as poorly written/organized, but I'm not sure whether to throw it out altogether or rewrite. My impulse is to throw it out; I figured I should throw that up in the air out here. -- 71.156.95.86 02:03, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

dates and numbers

Is it it 1914-1940 or 1914-1960?

6 million or 1.5?

I'm confused. Can we get some sources up in here? the one that's listed isn't supporting either of these. It says "thousands of African-Americans"[1]

That seems a bit low to me? But 6 million? where did that come from? But maybe if were talking about 1914-1960 it makes sense. What's the source? futurebird (talk) 00:36, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

I changed it back and forth. I thought it was low, too, then found there was the start of an article about the Second Great Migration, from the 1940s through 1960, when more people actually migrated. So I changed this date back to end in 1940 (which was what the first citation had), and total 1.5 million migrants. Someone else had put that up before. I can look later this week for another citation if we need it.--Parkwells (talk) 02:32, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

There's an article for the Second Great Migration? Okay. futurebird (talk) 02:37, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Numbers of migrants in Great Migration

another editor changed the numbers of migrants, so more than one of us is making the same error. I think the articles on the Great Migration(s) should be combined. Their different timeframes, character and numbers could then be differentiated, but this having two articles is costing too much time and error. The Second Great Migration was from 1940-1970, and it had the greater number of migrants, including to Chicago. It's too confusing this way. I had changed it to the larger number and timeframe, too, then found the other article, so changed these earlier numbers back. If we keep making the same mistake, the article needs to be changed. I'll post this on the article Talk page, too.--Parkwells 16:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


> There is internal inconsistency too: first it's 2 million in the period 1910-1930, then 1.6 million in 1910-1940.--Joostschouppe (talk) 09:58, 24 August 2011 (UTC)

Combine Migration pages and differentiate within article?

I think we should combine the Second Great Migration (African American) with the Great Migration (African American)this one within one article, and differentiate within the article. Otherwise it is too confusing. This leads with the total number of migrants for both migrations, but is mostly about the first Migration. I know there is more material for both this and the Second Migration - that online encyclopedia has much information about the differences. It would be easier for people to find and easier for people to contribute if all the material were in one place. What do you think? I'll post this at the Second Migration article, too.--Parkwells (talk) 15:18, 7 December 2007 (UTC) ==

Migration Routes

I don't know enough to write this section, but I think it would be an interesting addition to the article. Basically the migrations followed the railroads- Mississippi Valley to Chicago and the upper Midwest; East coast of the South to PA, NY, New England, DE and NJ; and LA, OK and TX to CA. And probably even closer connections exist; for instance Trenton NJ has a large African American population from a few areas of NC. Nitpyck (talk) 23:19, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Maybe I can find some sources as I'd read that, too. Yes, many times villages and neighborhoods would move more or less together, just as people did coming from Europe.--Parkwells (talk) 13:55, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Reading Minds

I can tell a liberal wrote this. Of course they want to throw racism in there when it could have been purely jobs since they came back. It very much sounds like it was written by someone with no ties to the south and someone very biased. California and New York are where black people always riot -- maybe people in those liberal states aren't as perfect as everyone thinks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.198.163 (talk) 21:30, 10 May 2010 (UTC)


---"Terrorists ran amok in the southern states, slaying Negroes. There were no law-enforcement people who obeyed the law and apprehended the killers of Negroes who could do little other than bury those who had been killed. The imagined "facts" in this article never existed. 71.253.34.205 21:18, 3 February 2006 (UTC)"---

Wikipedia is known for its radicals and lies. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.198.163 (talk) 21:32, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

It shouldn't take a mind-reader to deduce that most people of any race prefer to live in places where they are not likely to be lynched because of their race or forced to accept separate and unequal living conditions because of their race. Add the possibility of better pay and greater economic opportunities elsewhere and it shouldn't be surprising that many African-Americans left the former CSA if and when they had the opportunity to do so. I believe the ancestors of most European-Americans and Asian-Americans left wherever they were living in Europe or Asia and came to the United States for that same reason.

From another perspective, the KKK wanted African-Americans "out" of the former CSA and many of them too the "hint" and left.

Is it being "radical" to acknowledge that more African-Americans were lynched in the former CSA than elsewhere in the United States? I think not. The US government did nothing on the Federal level to stop lynchings for many years but it did keep an accurate running tally of how many lynchings took place.

The question of where it is that "black people always riot" is beside the point when the subject of the article is the reason(s) why a significent percentage of African-Americans living in the former CSA chose to leave a strictly racially segregated society and seek better living conditions elsewhere. How many whites would willingly live in a social system in which they were subjected to the far-reaching race-based restrictions imposed on African-Americans in the former CSA between 1880 and sometime well after 1965? Not any! (71.22.47.232 (talk) 08:15, 3 July 2010 (UTC))

Merger Proposal

I think that some of the content from the The urbanization of blacks in America should be merged into here. It is not a high-quality article, but it does have some verifiable content that is not here and it would be helpful to have added here rather than lose it all in a clean-up deletion. Petropetro (talk) 00:38, 9 April 2011 (UTC)

Race riots

I don't see a lot of mention of the Red Summer of 1919, although this was in part a result of the Great Migration. It's a very important part of American history. Shouldn't we include this in the article? — Preceding unsigned comment added by B14709 (talk • contribs) 01:15, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

The Red Summer violence served as further ethnic cleansing, fueling migration more than resulting from it. --LoneStarNot (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

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Defaming the Irish

"Tensions were often most severe between ethnic Irish, defending their recently gained positions and territory, and recent immigrants and blacks." Seriously, someone checked the passports and knows the Irish were to blame for tensions... as if Frank Rizzo was Irish and the Crown Heights riots started over a St. Patrick's Day parade. Whoever wrote the Irish stuff must have spent his entire life living in an Ivy League ivory tower. Speaking of defending turf, did you ever visit Princeton or Yale in the 1960s. The only blacks there were a couple of guys who mowed the lawn and played football. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.3.32.84 (talk) 19:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

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Move discussion in progress

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Tensions and Violence

The first two paragraphs of this section do not make much sense. They seem to be more of a historical account belonging to the section above. The relevance of the sentence about the investigation of Congress regarding migration to Kansas is unclear. Was it because of violence or for another reason? It would be nice to engage the person who added that section to understand why it is presented that way. I'm not ready to start making any changes yet, but I might...

--David Tornheim (talk) 05:15, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

I see what happened. The section heading was changed here along with adding more material about tensions and violence. I'm going to change the section headings so they make more sense. --David Tornheim (talk) 05:27, 14 April 2018 (UTC)

Ethnic Cleansing?

Isn't this an example of ethnic cleansing? Obviously by far not the most extreme (or violent/murderous) in history, but still on the same spectrum. --86.178.146.194 (talk) 22:40, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes. "Great Migration" whitewashes the physical and economic violence which motivated so many to leave. Still, in spite of the 3,446 lynchings and other terrorism, some stayed; and others specifically sought employment in Northern cities. Are we willing to overturn the established phrase for something more descriptive, like The Great Ethnic Purge, the Southern Whitening, US Ethnic Cleansing, The Whitening of the South, etc? Is it those, or the current title, which violates our Wikipedia:Neutral point of view agreement more? Is adopting a phrase only slightly & arguably better worth the inevitable "divisive" charges? --LoneStarNot (talk) 03:12, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

No. Because the conditions that caused the migration to begin with were not intended to cause the AA population to pick up and move. Also, when the migration became large, the powers that be in the South increased wages and curtailed the more harsh policies of Jim Crow - all done to try and keep the population there. Ethnic cleansing would not have done any of that and in fact, would have seen Jim Crow policies became even more restrictive to increase the population leaving. 2600:1700:1EC1:30C0:8D6F:EF:F84F:1B46 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:54, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

References for causes of migration

So I'm not trying to advance some kind of "Actually, racism had nothing to do with the great migration at all" theory here. I'm just going by the sources I have handy. I'm reading Benyon's article on the origins of the Nation of Islam, and he says that the NOI members he interviewed reported being substantially more aware of racism after having lived in the north than they had been before. Obviously, black migrants who joined NOI are a subset of black migrants generally, but the one source I have from an actual academic doing actual research published in a peer-reviewed journal says something that runs counter to this. The citations supporting this are not academic; they have some value, but it more or less amounts to conventional wisdom rather than actual systematic ethnography. The main-article graph suggests that segregation, racism, and lynching were the primary causes of migration, with no better cite than a count of the number of lynchings. Surely some people who edit this page know better sources than these. Dingsuntil (talk) 00:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Actually the intro does mention "poor economic conditions" as a motivating factor. But you've touched on something I've though about addressing in this article for quite sometime. More whites moved North during the same time period than did blacks. (I've thought about adding that since I have a RS for it.) But the article's focus is more on African-American migration....and I don't think anyone in their right mind would say racism wasn't a big factor.Rja13ww33 (talk) 19:37, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Well, we have to go by the evidence, not by what people "in their right mind would say" (aka conventional wisdom). Benyon's ethnography implies that racism was not a factor for those migrants who ended up in NOI. They moved north for (presumably) the money, then went back home on vacation and thought "wow, I never noticed how racist these white people were before!" But before I go around striking mention of racism from the causes of the migration, I thought I ought to give people more familiar with the subject a chance to get better sources for this. As for the white migration, it's a good point but this article is about the black migration. If there was an article about the white migration, presumably you could link & mention it, but I don't see one. Dingsuntil (talk) 21:39, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
Oh wait, actually Hillbilly Highway Dingsuntil (talk) 16:24, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

My plans for adding more information in this Article

I will be adding some more information under the section cause, tension and violence, and migration pattern under the second great migration section on this wiki page. Under the cause section, I will be adding the lack of economic, sharecropping, agricultural depression, the widespread infestation of the boll weevil, and Jim Crow Law. My reference for this information would be Black Protest and the Great Migration: a Brief History with Documents by Eric Arnesen, pg 2-12. Under the section tension and violence, I will be adding more examples of events resulting from the first great migration. Events such as the American Federation of Labor protest in a non-violent movement, but later led to the East St Louis Illinois Riot of 1917. Also, I will be adding information about the Silent Parade, a sponsored protest by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and post World War I conflict led to events such as the Red Summer 1919 and the Chicago race riot of 1919. My reference for this information would also be Black Protest and the Great Migration: a Brief History with Documents by Eric Arnesen, pg 12-15, 29-35. The Last section I would be adding information would be under the section migration pattern. I will add details on why African Americans also move from rural to urban Southern cities. Factors that influence metropolitan southern cities’ movement include growing industrialization and the struggle faced in moving into Northern and Western. I will be adding specific data, such as the employment level in Louisville. The reference I will be using is Way up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970 by Luther Adams pg 24-36. Both authors are credible sources. Eric Arnesen is a Modern American Labor History professor at Columbia College and is a co-chair at the Wilson Center’s Washington History Seminar. Luther Adams is an associate professor at the University of Washington in the unit Social and Historical Studies, division of School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences. Also, the book, Way up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970, is published by the University of North Carolina, 2010. Overall, I only add more information under these sections so that these sectors will have more details. I am planning to add a total of 200-300 words total. If anyone wants to comment on these changes, please let me know on this Talk Page or my Talk Page. Michy360 (talk) 05:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

Cleaning up some

For the most part, I have just cleaned this up a little. I fixed some verb tense issues. The article as it stood vacillated between using and not using a hyphen in African American, so I went with the APA and MLA styles in making it consistently without a hyphen. Dgndenver (talk) 00:10, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

Dgndenver, It depends, African American is a noun, African-American is an adjective, or the first part of a compound noun: eg., 'African Americans are', and 'African-American people are' -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:25, 19 February 2021 (UTC)

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