The Great Migration: Crash Course Black American History #24

hi i'm clint smith and this is crash course black american history and today we're talking about the great migration you know sometimes moving is exciting maybe an exciting job opportunity pulls you to a brand new city and so you get to move some place you've never been or you go from being a college student to a working adult and get to move into the apartment of your dreams or if you were like me one that you shared with seven other people shout out to your early 20s but sometimes people don't leave a place simply because they want to but because in one way or another they've been pushed away in what would become known as the great migration which took place in the early to mid 20th century many black americans who lived in the south moved to the northern united states to the urban south and to the west they did this to find better jobs more economic mobility and to escape the ever-present threat of violence in the south let's start the show [Music] i want to note up top that this episode will address some challenging topics like extreme violence during the great migration large numbers of black americans left the jim crow south in two waves one from around 1910 through 1940 and another from 1940 to 1970. it was one of the largest domestic migrations in american history you see in 1910 most black americans lived in the south 90 in fact and this makes a lot of sense because most of slavery had been centered in the south and even after the emancipation of enslaved black americans many folks stayed in the same areas where they had previously lived but by 1940 around 1.5 million black americans had left their homes and that percentage of black americans in the south had dropped to 77 and by 1970 that number would drop to 52 they mostly went to cities like chicago illinois detroit michigan pittsburgh pennsylvania and new york city in my own family we had a lot of people leave new orleans and actually move out to the west coast settling in and around los angeles in the early 1900s black americans were being both pushed out of the south and also pulled toward the north as for why they were pushed away from the south after slavery many black americans were subjected to a physically taxing and economically precarious system called sharecropping to learn more about how unfair the system was let's go to the thought bubble so let's say there's a farmer we'll call him farmer joe maybe farmer joe or his dad or granddad before him had a plantation where he had enslaved workers who tended to the land after the war was over because of the 13th amendment farmer joe can no longer enslave those workers so he had to find a different arrangement in order to plant and harvest the crops on that land this arrangement was known as sharecropping the way it worked was like this farmer joe brought in some help they might be formerly enslaved people or the descendants of formerly enslaved people or poor whites he provided these workers with land cabins seeds animals and the tools needed to work on the farm from the beginning of the season through the harvest time all of these things were provided to the workers on credit by the end of the harvest season farmer joe had a certain expectation about how many crops he would receive and if that expectation wasn't met he could claim that the workers were now even further indebted to him than they were before and because of high interest rates unpredictable harvest seasons and deceptive agreements by the landowners many sharecroppers found themselves in a cycle of endless debt that was difficult if not impossible to escape there were even laws in place that prevented sharecroppers from leaving the land if they were in debt to the landowner and farmer joe could even send his workers to jail for these deaths all of this would go on to shape the racialized prison industrial complex thanks thoughtbubble even when black americans own their land factors like unpredictable weather and pests like the boll weevil made farming less and less sustainable and also less profitable because so many black americans in the south were earning next to nothing because of the cyclical debt the idea of finding more stable work in the north became increasingly appealing stories from those who had made their way to these other cities trickled back down south jobs in the north the story went created by the auto industry meatpacking industry and steel and iron industry were paying black people a lot more money black men that were only earning 75 cents a day while working in the south could make up to five dollars a day working in the north and for many it seemed too good to pass up another huge reason for the great migration was the impact of jim crow and domestic terrorism by groups like the ku klux klan even though the reconstruction amendments promised black americans freedom from slavery the right to vote for men at least and full citizenship with all the benefits it was supposed to carry many white americans just weren't okay with that they showed their displeasure with both institutional and interpersonal violence filling the lives of black southerners with misery and terror to start the southern united states used jim crow laws to segregate black communities and prevent them from having access to any of the resources that would make their homes neighborhoods and communities better as a result many black communities were dilapidated and generally just in poor terrible condition what's more as we've talked about before black people couldn't even use the same water fountains hospitals waiting rooms and even cemeteries as white people i mean you would think that racism would at least rest with the dead but it followed you even after you were buried many of these southern states used literacy tests poll taxes and property requirements to make sure that black americans couldn't vote eroding the power of the 14th and 15th amendment and they took it to the extreme by violently destroying black communities think the wilmington north carolina riots of 1898 and the atlanta riots of 1906. there were groups whose main goal was to maintain white supremacy and black subordination in the south who used to beat harass and lynch black people with unsettling frequency other white people who were not necessarily affiliated with these groups also both watched and participated in these violent acts in fact many people used to attend lynchings as family events this violence prompted black people to literally run for their lives to the north and the west some have argued that because of this we should actually think of the great migration as a sort of refugee crisis in her award-winning book the warmth of other sons the pulitzer prize-winning journalist isabel wilkerson writes they traveled deep into far-flung regions of their own country and in some cases clear across the continent thus the great migration had more in common with the vast movements of refugees from famine war and genocide in other parts of the world where oppressed people whether fleeing 21st century darfur or 19th century ireland go great distances journey across rivers deserts and oceans or as far as it takes to reach safety with the hope that life will be better wherever they land newspapers like the chicago defender and other informal networks like church groups benevolent societies and black pullman porters told the stories of many black americans who were thriving in the north and that encouraged many black southerners to take the risk and come join them but once they arrived there things weren't just magically better often times things remained really tough poverty was widespread and segregation was still in place racism while it may have looked different in these urban cities wasn't just limited to the south so black folks established benevolent societies through churches and other organizations to help new migrants and their families adjust to life in the north another fascinating part of the story of the great migration is that many white people in the south as more and more black people began to leave actually got nervous and were worried that too many black people were leaving see as terribly as black people were treated on a social and political level the economic infrastructure of the south relied heavily on black people's labor some employers increased their wages to stem the tide but most of the time that wasn't enough white southerners got so desperate that they tried to pressure newspapers into telling more negative stories about black life in the north they would block trains and buses filled with migrants from leaving the south and even beat and intimidated people for attempting to leave i mean think about it you were beaten if you stayed and you were beaten if you tried to leave that was black life in a nutshell something to remember is that no matter what it is never easy to leave home though much of the land black people lived on in the early 20th century carried a lot of pain it also carried a lot of memories it was part of their lineage it was part of their history leaving home isn't easy but that also shows you how desperate people were for both economic opportunity and for safety and while it wasn't perfect for many the north and the west did provide that people were able to get economic opportunities that they otherwise just wouldn't have had and while to be sure violence against black folks did exist in the north it wasn't nearly as extensive as it was below the mason-dixon line what's more the great migration created huge hubs of black urban spaces and culture it would go on to give us some of our best artists musicians and writers the great migration was nuanced complicated and dynamic and the story we tell about it should reflect that complexity it's not just a story of what was done to black people but serves as an example of black americans taking control of their lives identities and destinies in a country that was constantly attempting to strip all of those things away from them the writer isabelle wilkerson puts it best over the decades perhaps the wrong questions have been asked about the great migration perhaps it is not a question of whether the migrants brought good or ill to the cities they fled to or were pushed or pulled to their destinations but a question of how they summon the courage to leave in the first place or how they found the will to press beyond the forces against them and the faith in a country that had rejected them for so long by their actions they did not dream the american dream they wheeled it into being by definition of their own choosing they did not ask to be accepted but declared themselves the americans that perhaps few others recognized but that they had always been deep within their hearts thanks for watching i'll see you next time crash course is made with the help of all these nice people and our animation team is thought cafe crash course is possible with the 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Channel: CrashCourse

Views: 210,336

Keywords: John Green, Hank Green, vlogbrothers, Crash Course, crashcourse, education

Id: Woh63FlFDBk

Length: 12min 40sec (760 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 06 2021