The Great Migration

2/1/18

New Slavery?

- Slavery has been illegal since 1865, but “new slavery” existed in the form of Jim Crow

laws, lynching, economic hardship, restricting voting laws, etc.

“Great Migration” - Between 1890s-1920s, more than a million African Americans oved North

and West

- Changed demographics

- Sought racial toleration, jobs

- The north and west was seen as the “Promised Land” to many blacks

- Between 1916-1960s, more than 6 million moved north

o World War I

Ralph Ellison wrote the Invisible Man

- African American identity in a “white world”

- African Americans had no sense of self

- Rules are made by white Americans

Booker T. Washington was born a slave

- His father was believed to have been white, moved with mom after emancipation

o Into West Virginia

- Began working at age 9 in salt furnaces and coal mines.

- Attended school for African Americans, worked as a janitor

- He believed that Black Americans should learn a trade, especially an industrial trade.
W.E.B. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts.

- Educated at Fisk and Harvard, never experienced slavery

- Souls of Black Folk, 1903

- Denounced Booker T. Washington (Uncle Tom)

- Scholar and Public speaker

- Embraced Marxism; developed a pro-soviet point of view

- Joined Communist Party, 1961

Marcus Garvey

- Self-educated

- Printer’s apprentice

- Promoted black pride  self-sufficient black communities

- Started many small business, black owned and employed only blacks

o Black people should be supporting black businesses