The Great Migration essays

The Great Migration essays During the early decades of the twentieth century, African Americans left the South in growing numbers, migrating North, with hopes of leaving a life behind that was dictated by racism, Jim Crow law, disenfranchisement, and violence based on hatred of black skin. With dreams of new opportunities for economic self-sufficiency, political participation, integration and freedom from racial violence, African Americans were soon to be met with resistance from Northern whites and middle-class blacks who perceived the migrants as representing a black mass who would change the face of the northern urban landscape forever. The immediate result of the influx of African Americans into urban areas of the North was the eruption of violence during the 1919 race riots, which tore the Chicago apart. Headlines proclaiming a sense of horror, disdain and humor in white-oriented newspapers provided evidence of white response to the arrival of migrating African Americans into Northern cities that had remained predominantly white. There was a growing tension that suggested that there was a need for whites to engage in efforts to control African Americans as they moved into the North and to engage in violence against them out of perceived necessity due to their intrusive presence which stirred up feelings of fear and insecurity on the part of whites. In Chicago, which gained over fifty thousand migrants between 1910 and 1920, fear was brimming and evident on the part of whites. While African Americans did not experience massive benefits upon their arrival in the city, they gained some sense of greater dignity and pride as they began attempting to settle into the urban area. However, numerous obstacles were present and intended to prevent African Americans from gaining full access to benefits enjoyed by whites. In 1874, Illinois had legally abolished school segregation and desegregated pub...