Talk:Great Migration (African American)

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)