The Great Northwood Migration: 6 Million African Americans Move North 1916-1970 - Essay Sample

Introduction

The Great Northwood Migration, commonly referred to as Great Migration or the Migration of the Blacks, refers to a movement of closely 6 million black Americans living in the Southern part of America to the Northern regions. The Migration of African Americans occurred between 1916 and 1970. Factors such as Jim Crow rules and poor economic conditions facing the Black Americans in the southern region is assumed to have necessitated the movement. In every census activity which happened before 1910, indicated that a fifth of the African-American population was living in urban areas suggesting over 90% of the total Blacks population was living in the South. After the Great Migration, more than 50% of Black Americans had moved to cities occupying significant parts of the northern urban areas and western regions. As a result, only less than 50% of the total population was occupying the southern region. High African American Migration during this period suggested that most individuals had migrated to the cities reversing the general population distribution of the Blacks compared to an earlier period. Over 80% of the population had migrated to the cities nationwide by 1970 (Farrington, Charles). The paper focuses on analyzing the Great Northwood migration through aspects such as impacts and demographic changes.

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The Great Migration is one of the most rapid and most massive Migrations for internal movement off people ever recorded in history. There a vast number of stressors which could lead to the mass migration of African American as compared to other people migration to United states such as the Poles or the Jews or Irish or Italians migrants into the United States (Farrington, Charles). The African-American Migration had significant motivating factors such as deserting their earlier way of life in the South and trying to establish a new way of life by fighting through a social and economic base.

Some scholars analyzing the great Migration tend to bring a clear distinction between the phases of Migration, such as 1916 to 1940, with at least 1.6 million African American Migration. The leading cause of Migration during this phase is higher industrialization in the Northern region compared to the southern part, which acted as a pulling factor for the migrants. As quoted earlier, the economic condition of the black Americans in the South was too lowed to sustain the growing needs; as a result, search for better employment opportunities in North was the only option hence rapid Migration. The second phase of Migration was after the Great Depression, which pulled over 5 million people to the North and the west, who has urban skills (Farrington, Charles). However, after the revolution of the Civil Rights Movements, there has been are less rapid Migration of individuals to the South as the Southern region becomes more developed.

Demographic Changes

As stated earlier, The great Migration involved mass population migration from the southern region to the northern states. As a result, the most rural black population in the South was drained much, resulting in a period of the reduced African-American population in the southern region. Over time, the community of the Black Americans significantly reduced notably in southern areas, which were initially dominated by cotton-growing such as a black belt. The demographic of the South of distribution experienced a significant change. States such as Mississippi and South Carolina had the highest African black population compared to the whites before Migration, with over 40% in areas such as Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, and Georgia.

However, by the end of the Great Migration, only Mississippi state had over 30% of the total population is African American. The Black Belt disappearance was among the significant hit to the substantial population reduction in regions initially occupied by the Black Americans. The increasing influx of African Americans in the Western and Northern states had a considerable influence on changing the demographics of Cities within these regions. In the early 1900, only less than 8% of the Black population lived outside the South constituting to 740, 000 (Weimerskirch, Henri, et al., 103). By the end of the Great Migration, over 47% of the African American population was living outside the South.

The Migrants were majorly concerned in establishing themselves across the major cities within the northern and western regions; in return, there was a high magnification of their influence within those regions. Most cities that had been occupied by majority whites before Migration turned to be a center for Blacks and significant political deviations in the mid-century. The growing tendency of settling with others and informal residential segregation resulted in a high concentration of the black population within specific regions.

Other evident Black cultural advancements such as Black Metropolises led to the development of essential infrastructure depicting African American Culture such as political organization, business, newspapers, and jazz clubs. Due to great Migration, the growth of massive black population within the Northern and Western region in major cities compared to other cities which had a black community resulted in continued migration attraction after the world war. According to conservative estimates, over 400,000 initially left the southern region and migrated to the Northern part to satisfy the growing demand of laborers within the industries (Weimerskirch, Henri, et al., 103).

The African American population grew a significant increase after Migration compared to a population of 6, 000 individuals in 1910 (Gardner, John, 116). The city of Detroit was turned to among the largest cities after the influx of the immigrants and their descendants. Before the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the Detroit city had reached over 120, 000 black-Americans (Weimerskirch, Henri, et al., 103). The city of Chicago Black population to over 1754, 000 individuals increasing per capita population by over one million.

The second phase of the Great Migration led to higher population growth to over 813 000 black Americans from 278,000. Migration to cities such as Ohio, especially in Cleveland, resulted in a significant change in the city demographics as well as the central industrial city. Cleveland's Black-American population growth was 1.1% to 1.6% before the Great Migration (Weimerskirch, Henri, et al., 103). As a result of the Great Migration, the population distribution in Ohio State rose significantly to a large population over 20 years. New York's Harlem grew to be a black-American Population center. The general population of the major cities in the Western and Nothern Regions grew significantly with the rise of industrialization as more African Americans were being deployed to work in such regions.

Labor Market Competition

Moving from the South was probably the best thing that the African Americans had done. However, the benefits were visible such as they could find high-wages in the North; the market for labor continued to increase. The black workers who had made it to the North as the first ones lost their jobs to the newly arriving black employees. Before 1965, the northern black workers gained lesser income because of the continued competition from the southern workers (Gardner, John, 22).

The competition in the market that led to the low incomes arose, and it focused on the black immigrants who had become workers in the North. It only appeared this way because there was job classification between the blacks and the whites. They were not assigned similar types of tasks. They did not compete for the same jobs either (Gardner, John, 22). It was discrimination in the labor market. The segmentation of the northern market chances was based on racial reasons, and it could be broken down in terms of the level of education and the training possessed by the workers. Racial borders were also applied while hiring workers.

The groups were the ones applied in determining the effect on wages of both the whites and the blacks in the North. The impact could be estimated by checking the increasing numbers of working-age men immigrants from the South. The working-age had different levels of education, training, and experience, and it helped in dividing them into appropriate groups (Gardner, John, 22). An example of a skill group could be a worker who was a high school graduate and had less than three years of work experience. Another could be a high school graduated but had more than five-year work experience. Both of them were placed and handled separate tasks.

The new arrivals who were placed into the skill groups would then affect the existing workers' wages in that particular group. One task group could get overloaded. The case appeared mostly on the black workers' side. Through this, it helped to determine how the workers could be substituted within each skill group. It also helped to identify how blacks and whites who had the same years of schooling and work experience did not participate interchangeably in production markets in the North after the Second World War (Gardner, John, 22).

The working place stratification between the blacks and the whites could also have been attributed to prior racial disparities. According to how the skill groups were organized, it also showed that racism had not originated in the North after the mass migration (Gardner, John, 130). The schooling quality of the blacks, even while they were in the South, was less as compared to their counterparts. In the early and mid-twentieth century, the blacks were offered shorter school years.

The imperfect substitution of workers in the North by race could, therefore, be associated with the differences arising from the contrasted quality of the schooling that they attended. It seemed to be a superior reason than mere racial discrimination in hiring immigrant men who had similar skill levels. Although racial disparities were not applied in recruiting the workers in the North, it subjected the in-migrants to much more significant obstacles. Most black workers, especially those who had migrated from the South, were assigned strenuous and manual jobs such as attending steel factories. Black women who had also migrated from the South were not considered to as candidates who could hold higher positions and were treated like their fellow immigrants from the South (Gardner, John, 135).

Net Economic Effects of Migration

The great Migration affected the black wage growth in the North. It could be observed that in the absence of immigration to the North, the total earning of the black workers who were already living in the North would be ten times more by 1970. The white worker's average earnings would have remained constant. It means that the black workers who were settled in the North would have increased their annual profits to more than $5,000 (Baharian, Soheil, et al.).

However, following the in-migration, the 10 percent that could have been achieved by every black worker turned out to be a similar loss (Baharian, Soheil, et al.). It only resulted due to the competition that was spectated with each new landing of new migrants. An annual aggregate loss that is much than $1.6 billion was accrued. However, with the continued in-migration from the South, the black-wage growth deteriorated. The black wage growth would have been uplifted by raising the wages of the black workers who had remained in the South.

The Migration reduced much competition in the southern labor markets. It was a new dawn for the South since most benefits of in-migration to the black workers were achieved. The cost of the overall black economy advanced at the expense of creating much strain and competition in the North (Baharian, Soheil, et al.). The slow black economy progre...