The Great Migration

*An African American family moving from the South to the North.*

*An image created by famous painter Jacob Lawrence during the mid 1900’s.*

After the civil war, in the beginning of the 1900’s, many Southern African Americans move to the north. The Great Migration, sometimes known as the Great Northward Migration, or the Black Migration, was the movement of six million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West that occurred between 1916 and 1970. During this time period, the key to black progression during the twentieth century was to work, provide and educate themselves. This migration encouraged thinking, better labor and the way of living for African Americans. Many African Americans in the South aspired for a better life in the North. This was the start of free thinking which then led to the New Negro Movement.