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During the Great Migration, from the 1910s to the 1970s, roughly six million Black Americans left the U.S. South for cities in the North, Midwest and West, reshaping work, politics, music and family life.

The Great Migration

MigrationHistoryCultureMusicBiography

The story behind the card

People left to escape Jim Crow laws, which enforced racial segregation and kept most Black Southerners from voting, as well as racial violence and poorly paid work as sharecroppers, tenant farmers paid with a share of the crop. Historians usually describe two waves: the first, from about 1916 to 1940, began when the First World War left northern factories short of workers; the second and larger wave ran from 1940 to 1970. Chicago, Detroit, New York and Los Angeles gained large Black communities. Migrants brought Southern music with them: Muddy Waters moved from Mississippi to Chicago in 1943 and helped create electric Chicago blues. In the North they still met discrimination, including redlining, in which lenders and a federal agency marked Black neighbourhoods as too risky for home loans.

Türkçe oku
1910'lardan 1970'lere uzanan Büyük Göç'te yaklaşık altı milyon Siyah Amerikalı, ABD'nin güneyinden kuzeyin, orta batının ve batının kentlerine taşındı. Bu göç çalışma hayatını, siyaseti, müziği ve aile yaşamını baştan biçimlendirdi.

İnsanlar, ırk ayrımını yasayla dayatan ve Güneyli Siyahların çoğunu oy kullanmaktan alıkoyan Jim Crow yasalarından, ırkçı şiddetten ve ortakçılıktan, yani ürünün bir payı karşılığında başkasının tarlasında çalışmanın getirdiği yoksulluktan kaçıyordu. Tarihçiler genellikle iki dalgadan söz eder: Birincisi, Birinci Dünya Savaşı kuzeydeki fabrikalarda işçi açığı yaratınca başladı ve yaklaşık 1916'dan 1940'a kadar sürdü; daha büyük olan ikinci dalga ise 1940'tan 1970'e kadar devam etti. Chicago, Detroit, New York ve Los Angeles'ta büyük Siyah toplulukları oluştu. Göçmenler Güney'in müziğini de beraberlerinde getirdi: Muddy Waters 1943'te Mississippi'den Chicago'ya taşındı ve elektrikli Chicago bluesunun doğuşuna katkıda bulundu. Kuzey'de de ayrımcılıkla karşılaştılar. Bunlardan biri, bankaların ve bir federal kurumun Siyahların yaşadığı mahalleleri konut kredisi için fazla riskli diye işaretlediği “redlining” uygulamasıydı.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Great Migration (African American)
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