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The Great Migration:

A Document Based Essay Project

The goal of this project is to get you accustomed to using Primary and Secondary Resources to
understand historical events and write an essay that utilizes historical documents to make an argument.

This is a four day assignment. On Day 1, we will briefly review the Introductory Essay and 19 Documents
as a class. On Day 2 and 3, you will carefully examine the Documents and answer the 19 Document
Clarifying Questions. On Day 4, you will begin writing your Document Based Essay Rough Draft. On Day
5, we will have a peer review day where you and a classmate exchange Essays and help one another
improve your Essays for a final revision. The Document Based Essay (3-4 pages typed and double
spaced) will be due the following Monday.

Directions:
1. Read the Introductory Essay.
2. Look over the 19 Documents included in this packet.
3. Answer the Clarifying Questions that are provided for analyzing the
19 Documents.
4. Use your previous knowledge, the documents provided, and/or
additional sources to answer the Document Based Essay Question:

Why did substantial numbers of African-

Americans leave their homes in the South to
start new lives in the Northern Cities in the
decades after World War I? How were their
lives different after making this migration?
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INTRODUCTORY ESSAY:

The Great Migration of Afro-Americans, 1915-40

Monthly Labor Review, March, 1987 by Spencer R. Crew

The Great Migration of Afro-Americans, 1915-40 The "Great Migration" of Afro-Americans

from largely rural areas of the southern United States to northern cities during and after World
War I altered the economic, social, and political fabric of American society. It made the regional
problems of race and sociopolitical equality national issues and gave Afro-Americans a role in
the election of northern political leaders, in contrast to the absence of a political role in the
South. It helped to spawn a generation of black leaders who struggled for the full citizenship
rights of Afro-Americans. Because the hundreds of thousands of people who participated in the
migration tended to settle in northern urban areas, the effects of the population change were
greatly magnified.

The momentousness of the migration as an event does not alter the fact that the migrants were
ordinary people. Like colonial settlers or western pioneers of an earlier day, they were not
looking to change the world, only their own status. A mixture of farmers, domestic servants, day
laborers, and industrial workers, they came from all parts of the South, hoping for a chance to
improve their own station or at least that of their children. When the outbreak of World War I
drastically changed the job structure of northern urban areas, moving to these cities offered a
fresh start and new opportunities for this massive wave of migrants.

Migrating North also meant leaving familiar surroundings and community institutions which
provided support in times of need. Church activities, social clubs, and fraternal organizations
were part of a vibrant Afro-American community in the South which provided a buffer from the
indignities faced in the outside community. For many Afro-Americans, this private community
offered enough support to make their lives tolerable despite hardships. While hundreds of
thousands of Afro-Americans chose to leave the South, many more remained behind or returned
home after visiting northern cities.

Once a decision to depart was made, leaving was often a complicated process. Southern officials
tried to slow the tide of migration by arresting or detaining Afro-Americans who tried to leave.
Local police regularly searched departing trains for people they thought might be heading North.
To escape police scrutiny, many migrants had to steal away late at night or devise elaborate plans
to get away safely. These subterfuges forced the migrants either to sell their property and
belongings secretly or to take with them only what they could carry. Most migrants were
working people who did not possess great wealth and leaving under these circumstances hurt
them financially. Items left behind or given away brought in no money and buyers rarely gave
full value for items they knew the owner had to sell. Many migrants, therefore, did not have
enough money with them to tide them over for long periods of time once they reached the North.
Consequently, finding a job became a high priority as soon as they arrived.
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Afro-Americans typically wound up in dirty, backbreaking, unskilled, and low-paying

occupations. These were the least desirable jobs in most industries, but the ones employers felt
best suited their black workers. On average, more than eight of every ten Afro-American men
worked as unskilled laborers in foundries, in the building trades, in meat-packing companies, on
the railroads, or as servants, porters, janitors, cooks, and cleaners. Only a relatively few obtained
work in semiskilled or skilled occupations.

Occupational choices for black women were even more limited because few of them, in
concordance with women in general, had access to industrial jobs. While some women found
employment in the garment industry, packing houses, and steam laundries, the majority of Afro-
American women worked as domestic servants or in service-related occupations. While none of
these jobs paid high wages, they paid more than Afro-Americans could obtain for similar work in
the South.

However, the cost of living in the North was higher than in the South. Funneled into certain areas
in most northern cities, Afro-Americans have paid nearly twice as much as their white
counterparts for equivalent housing. Higher rents made it harder for them to make housing
payments and encouraged migrants to take in boarders or other family members to help meet
expenses. While the extra income eased financial problems, it resulted in overcrowded living
conditions, little privacy, and poor sanitation. With the additional financial burden of having to
pay higher prices in neighborhood stores for food, clothing, and other necessities, settling in the
North was a mixed experience for many migrants. Though they earned better wages in the North,
much of the increased income was offset by higher living expenses.

The world then, which migrants found in northern cities did not always correspond with their
expectations. Despite the encouragements of newspapers like the Chicago Defender, migrants
were not always welcomed by residents of the northern cities. Both black and white urban
residents worried about the impact of so many new people and, on occasion, they sought to
discourage migrants from coming. Although not as virulent as it was in the South, racial
discrimination also existed in northern cities. And while work was available, it usually was at the
bottom of the pay scale and the occupational pecking order. Housing options and higher prices
presented additional adjustment problems for the migrants. As a consequence, moving North was
not a panacea for the many troubles migrants faced in the South. Northern urban areas presented
their own set of problems and adjustments for migrants once they reached their new destinations.

Despite these difficulties, Afro-Americans continued to migrate North and to stay. With the
many adjustments migrants faced, strange environments, new neighbors, and different ways of
behaving and dressing, most found northern cities more engaging than the places they left
behind. Though many migrants returned South regularly and referred to it as "home," they did
not remain. The South appeared to hold their hearts, but the North held their futures.
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DOCUMENT 1
“Call” for a National Conference to Address Racial Inequality

In January 1909 an interracial group gathered in William English Walling’s New York apartment
to discuss proposals for an organization that would advocate the civil and political rights of
African Americans. Walling, Mary White Ovington, and Henry Moskowitz were the nucleus of
the group. To garner support, the group decided to issue a call for a national conference on the
centenary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, February 12, 1909. Written by Oswald Garrison Villard,
―the Call‖ supposed Abraham Lincoln revisiting the country in 1909 to assess the progress of
race relations since the Emancipation Proclamation. It ended with an appeal to ―all believers in
democracy to join in a national conference for the discussion of present evils, the voicing of
protests, and the renewal of the struggle for civil and political liberty.‖ ―The Call‖ was sent to
prominent white and black Americans for endorsement. Among the sixty signers of the call were
Jane Addams, John Dewey, W.E.B. Dubois, Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Francis
J. Grimke, and Ray Stannard Baker.
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DOCUMENT 1 (Continued)
“Call” for a National Conference to Address Racial Inequality
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DOCUMENT 1 (Continued)
“Call” for a National Conference to Address Racial Inequality
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DOCUMENT 2
At School in the North

One of the great benefits of life in the North was that, contrary to what they had been doing in
the South, migrant children did not work. Because of compulsory education laws, they stayed in
school much longer than they did in the South, and their parents' incomes were generally
sufficient to ensure that the children would not have to work at an early age. This portable school
responded to the demand for educational facilities for the children of southern migrants.

Source: Jay S. Stowell, J. W. Thinks Black (New York: The Methodist Book Concern, 1922)
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DOCUMENT 3

NAACP Conference in Chicago, 1917

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People was established in 1909, with
local branches throughout the country. The association's journal, The Crisis, launched by W. E.
B. Du Bois, introduced a wide audience to critical analyses by black scholars and the literary
prowess of black writers. The journal published many articles on the migration north. It defined
the role of the organization as follows: "The first job of this organization was the awakening, a
quickening, a prickling of the American conscience, of public opinion and we have begun with
the only weapon which we had at hand and that weapon was intelligent and persistent agitation
about the right and the wrong."
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DOCUMENT 4
Educating Newcomers

Organizations such as the Chicago Urban League took great pains to educate newcomers on
correct decorum in public. Old-time residents feared a backlash on the whole community from
any indiscretions by the migrants. They urged them to forget their "rural ways." The Chicago
Defender declared, "It is evident that some of the people coming to this city have seriously erred
in their conduct in public places, much to the humiliation of all respectable classes of our
citizens." The paper urged strict observation of laws and customs and printed a list of twenty-six
don'ts.
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DOCUMENT 5
“Can I Scrub Your White Marble Steps?”A Black Migrant Recalls Life in Philadelphia

In the 1910s hundreds of thousands of African Americans headed North in the Great Migration.
Arthur Dingle was one of them. Dingle was born in the small town of Manning, North Carolina,
in 1891. After holding hotel jobs in several cities, he took a job with the Pennsylvania Railroad
in Philadelphia. Promised his job back if he enlisted in World War I, the company made good on
its promise when Dingle remained in Philadelphia after the war. This interview with Arthur
Dingle was conducted by Charles Hardy in 1983 for the Goin’ North Project.

Arthur Dingle: I came out of school pretty early, and I worked for the stores around town there, and then I
worked in the little hotel. So when I was about 19, I got the idea that I liked hotel work. So I left home and
went to Wilmington, North Carolina, worked at Oraton [inaudible] Hotel. Then the next year, I went on to
Norfolk. In 1913, when Woodrow Wilson’s first inauguration, another friend of mine and I left Norfolk and
went to Washington, and I got a job in the New Raleigh Hotel there, and I was a waiter there during Wilson’s
first inauguration. And I worked around back and forth all over the country, you might say. I worked in the
Saratoga in New York. Then I went to Scranton. I worked in the Casey Hotel there. And I went to school in
Scranton, the International Business School. I didn’t get much education down South, so I tried to, you know,
improve myself by working and going to school at night. So I stayed there quite a while.

Charles Hardy: What was it like then with all these new blacks up from the South in the city?

Dingle: Well, it was all right because everybody was working. They was coming up to get jobs. And there was
the Navy Yard, there was Sun Shipyard, and there was Midvale’s and this big steel plant up here in the North,
toward—I’ve forgotten the name of it—Allenwood. And all these big places was hiring people as fast as they
came up. And everybody was working and everybody got money. Why, things seemed to be all right. When
they got pretty close behind me to go to the Army, I came to Philadelphia and went to working for the railroad.
And I worked here twenty-three days and they called me to the Army. Well, the luck was that they said that
everybody at Pennsylvania Railroad said everybody that worked for the railroad and had to go to the Army,
they had their job when they came back. Well, in 1919, when I came back from France, you couldn’t—it’s
worse than it is now—you couldn’t buy a job because of all those fellows, you know, being discharged. So
when I was discharged at Fort Meade—Camp Meade they called it then—I came right back to Philadelphia
because I knowed that I had my job when I came back. I stayed there twelve years. In those days, there was no
welfare and there was no Social Security, and people was actually suffering. I know when I was living in North
Philadelphia, I was working, but there was plenty of people around there that had no job, no income, no
nothing. It was very hard for them.

Hardy: What did they do? Did they go back South? Did they stay in the city?

Dingle: [laughter] I can’t remember anybody going back South.

Hardy: No?

Dingle: No. I can’t remember any of them going back South. But they made out somehow or another. They’d
go around and hustle. And people had these white marble steps, and there was people who’d go around, ring
your bell, asking, ―Can I clean your steps, scrub your steps?‖ and they’d say, ―Yeah,‖ give them twenty-five
cents, and they’d scrub your steps. And there’s all kind of ways of making a few pennies.
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DOCUMENT 6
"We Thought State Street Would Be Heaven Itself":
Black Migrants Speak Out

During the Great Migration, which peaked between 1916 and 1921, some 5 percent of all
southern African Americans headed north. What were their experiences like in their new homes?
Beginning in 1917, Charles Johnson, research investigator for the Chicago Urban League, began
interviewing migrants in Chicago and Mississippi. Going door to door, Johnson questioned
recent southern black migrants to Chicago about their histories and current thoughts about their
experiences. Johnson’s summaries of his interviews conveyed a sense of migrants’ diverse
response to life in Chicago. The following is one summary Johnson wrote after interviewing
Mrs. Lynch, whose family came to Chicago that year.

Mrs. Lynch, husband, 7 children, 1 boarder, from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Husband, 2 grown
sons and 1 boarder and wife came in Jan. Wife and children followed in May. Husband been
employed at Stockyards—two sons in foundry at Gary, girl at stockyards for short while. Wages
at home $1.25 per day. Husband now in hospital. Boarder working with Gas Company.

White people don’t treat them as the Chicago Defender promised that they would. It was
November 1916 that her husband first heard from agent of people leaving New Orleans. No
interest at first. Finally when some of the men with whom he was working left, he decided to
make the venture himself. He wrote back that Chicago was the place for them and they joined
him in a few months. They could hardly wait for the money for transportation. The paper was
“just stirring things up so we that State Street would be heaven itself.” Came in party of 80.

Has not had any trouble in the South. Her daughter worked out in service under excellent
conditions. When she worked over time was sent home in a carriage. Here she is thrown in bad
company at the stockyards. She doesn’t like the North. People here, “don’t love God.” and,
“aint sociable.” This accounts for the close association of Mississippi people on Rhodes and in
this community.

Just can’t keep well here; knows that they will contract pneumonia when winter comes. 120
Persons from their home have died since coming here. Thinks expenses outrageous. Too many
people.
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DOCUMENT 7
Population Distribution of African Americans in Chicago - 1910
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DOCUMENT 7 (Continued)
Population Distribution of African Americans in Chicago - 1920
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DOCUMENT 8

Chicago Defender (1905- )

The Chicago Defender was founded in 1905 by Robert Sengstacke Abbott. Abbott published the
first issue, a run of 300 copies, on May 6, 1905. The Defender began as a four page weekly
handbill filled with local news and reproductions of clippings from other newspapers. Abbott
initially sold both subscriptions and advertising for the paper himself by going door to door
throughout Chicago.

Abbott used the Defender as a forum to attack racial injustice from the outset, and included a
front-page heading on every issue that read, ―American Race Justice Must Be Destroyed‖. The
Defender was a leading advocate in the fight against racial, economic, and social discrimination.
It championed equal employment and fair housing for blacks, and boldly reported on lynchings,
rapes, and black disfranchisement. What began as a four page handbill had become by 1915 a
popular local newspaper with a weekly circulation of 16,000.
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DOCUMENT 8 (CONTINUED)

Chicago Defender (1905- )

The Defender however, saw its major growth during the Great Migration and is credited as being
a major catalyst for that movement of half a million blacks from the South to the North between
1915 and 1920. Abbott used black Pullman Porters and entertainers to transport his paper across
the Mason-Dixon Line. Often after being smuggled to the South, it is estimated that many copies
of the Defender were read by four to five African Americans, who passed it from person to
person and read it aloud wherever blacks congregated. Included in its pages were articles and
editorials which tried to convince its oppressed southern readers to move north. Abbott even
printed copies of train schedules and job listings to entice southern blacks to relocate. The black
population of Chicago increased 148 percent from 1910 to 1920 with plenty of support and
encouragement from the Defender.

The Defender grew with the migration north. By 1917 it became the first African American
paper to reach a circulation of 100,000 copies and to achieve national circulation. By 1920 its
circulation reached 230,000 copies per week. Throughout the years, the Defender had many
notable columnists, including Walter White and Langston Hughes. It also published early works
of poet Gwendolyn Brooks; the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize in any category.
As a result of the Defender’s success Robert Abbott became one of the first African American
millionaires.

Sources: Aurora Wallace, Newspapers and the Making of Modern America (Westport,
Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2005); W. Augustus Low, ed., Encyclopedia of Black America
(New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1981)
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DOCUMENT 9

Boll Weevils

Over the last century boll weevils have represented the most serious threat to cotton production around
the world. Adult females deposit eggs in the cotton flower bud and the larvae and newly hatched young
proceed to feed on the maturing cotton boll destroying the crop. The map below shows the progress of the
boll weevil infestation in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century. Today there are statues
to the boll weevil in the South recognizing the positive result of the infestation - the forced diversification
of southern agriculture. In the first few decades of the 20th century, though, the bug caused agricultural,
economic, and social devastation affecting black and white southerners alike.
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DOCUMENT 10
Times is Gettin' Harder
The Great Migration was not just a movement of people. The culture of the migrants traveled North as
well - including the narrative traditions embodied in the Blues. The lyrics in the following song provide
insight in a unique way into the motives of many migrants.

Times is Gettin' Harder - Sing Along (A type of folk song that was usually sung in social
groups rather than performed by an individual group)

Times is gettin' harder,

Money's gettin' scarce.
Soon as I get my cotton and corn,
I'm bound to leave this place.

White folks sittin' in the parlor,

Eatin' that cake and food,
black person’s way down to the kitchen,
Squabblin' over turnip greens.
Times is gettin' harder,
Money's gettin' scarce.
Soon as I get my cotton and corn,
I'm bound to leave this place.

Me and my brother was out.

Thought we'd have some fun.
He stole three chickens.
We began to run.
Times is gettin' harder,
Money's gettin' scarce.
Soon as I get my cotton and corn
I'm bound to leave this place.
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DOCUMENT 11
Lynch Law Editorial – Cleveland Advocate Newspaper – 5-15-1920
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DOCUMENT 12
Afro-Americans Must Keep on One Side of Sidewalk

(Jim Crow Laws in Virginia)

AFRO-AMERICANS MUST KEEP ON ONE SIDE OF SIDEWALK

White School Girls Pushed Off Sidewalk in Danville, Va., And Appeal to Police—Blame Is
Placed Upon Youngsters of the Race but White Children Are Just As Bad.

Richmond, Va. March 5.—The local officials at Danville, Va., have recently put into
operation a new police rule which requires Afro-American children to limit their occupation
of the sidewalks to and from school when white children happen to be coming or going in
either direction.

From one of the white newspapers published in that city we clip this report:

Complaint has been made to the police department of the eternal habit of Negro school
children trying to take the entire sidewalk when going and coming from school. This
morning two young white girls appeared in court against a Negro for having shoved them
from the sidewalk. Unfortunately they had the wrong Negro boy.

So indignant did the presiding judge become on account of the story ... by the young white
girls and ... unable to inflict punishment on the innocent young boys, he ... the chief of police
to report ... to the mayor. Subsequently, ... the mayor issued an order directing the police to
arrest and bring ...court any Negro child or ... who obstructed the sidewalks where white
children were passing. He also requested the judge to deal severely with any offenders of this
rule brought before him.

This is the first time in the history of Danville that such harsh measures have been resorted
to. The colored citizens are becoming alarmed, as such gross injustice and are taking steps to
safeguard their rights in the premises.

Source: "Afro-Americans Must Keep on One Side of Sidewalk," Chicago Defender, March 6, 1915 v.
10, n. 10.
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DOCUMENT 13
An act to prohibit the co-education of the white and colored races (Tennessee,
1901)

An act to prohibit the co-education of the white and colored races and to prohibit the white and
colored races from attending the same schools, academies, colleges or other places of learning
in this state.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Tennessee, That hereafter it
shall be unlawful for any school, academy, college or other place of learning to allow white and
colored persons to attend the same school, academy, college or other place of learning.

SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That it shall be unlawful for any teacher, professor or educator in
the State, in any college, academy or school of learning, to allow the white and colored races to
attend the same school or for any teacher or educator, or other person to instruct or teach both the
white and colored races in the same class, school or college building, or in any other place or
places of learning, or allow or permit the same to be done with their knowledge, consent or
procurement.

SEC. 3. Be it further enacted, That any person or persons violating this Act or any of its
provisions, when convicted shall be fined for each offense fifty ($50) dollars and imprisoned not
less than thirty days nor more than six months, at the discretion of the Court.

SEC. 4. Be it further enacted, That Grand juries shall have inquisitorial powers of all violations
of the Act, and the same to be given in charge Circuit Court judges to the Grand Juries.

SEC. 5. Be it further enacted, That this Act shall take effect from and after the first day of
September, 1901, the public welfare requiring it.

APPROVED, March 13, 1901.

Source: "An act to prohibit the co-education of the white and colored races..." Laws of
Tennessee, 1901, Ch. 7, House Bill No. 7, p. 9.
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DOCUMENT 14
“Their Own Hotheadedness”: Senator Benjamin R.“Pitchfork Ben” Tillman Justifies
Violence Against Southern Blacks

In this March 23, 1900, speech before the U.S. Senate, Senator Benjamin R. ―Pitchfork Ben‖
Tillman of South Carolina defended the actions of his white constituents who had murdered
several black citizens of his home state. Tillman blamed the violence on the ―hot-headedness‖ of
Southern blacks and on the misguided efforts of Republicans during the Reconstruction era after
the Civil War to ―put white necks under black heels.‖ He also defended violence against black
men, claiming that southern whites ―will not submit to [the black man] gratifying his lust on our
wives and daughters without lynching him‖—an evocation of the deeply sexualized racist
fantasies of many Southern whites.

. . . And he [Senator John C. Spooner, of Wisconsin] said we had taken their rights away from
them. He asked me was it right to murder them in order to carry the elections. I never saw one
murdered. I never saw one shot at an election. It was the riots before the elections precipitated by
their own hot-headedness in attempting to hold the government, that brought on conflicts
between the races and caused the shotgun to be used. That is what I meant by saying we used the
shotgun.

I want to call the Senator’s attention to one fact. He said that the Republican Party gave the
negroes the ballot in order to protect themselves against the indignities and wrongs that were
attempted to be heaped upon them by the enactment of the black code. I say it was because the
Republicans of that day, led by Thad Stevens, wanted to put white necks under black heels and
to get revenge. There is a difference of opinion. You have your opinion about it, and I have mine,
and we can never agree.

I want to ask the Senator this proposition in arithmetic: In my State there were 135,000 negro
voters, or negroes of voting age, and some 90,000 or 95,000 white voters. General Canby set up
a carpetbag government there and turned our State over to this majority. Now, I want to ask you,
with a free vote and a fair count, how are you going to beat 135,000 by 95,000? How are you
going to do it? You had set us an impossible task. You had handcuffed us and thrown away the
key, and you propped your carpetbag negro government with bayonets. Whenever it was
necessary to sustain the government you held it up by the Army.

Mr. President, I have not the facts and figures here, but I want the country to get the full view of
the Southern side of this question and the justification for anything we did. We were sorry we
had the necessity forced upon us, but we could not help it, and as white men we are not sorry for
it, and we do not propose to apologize for anything we have done in connection with it. We took
the government away from them in 1876. We did take it. If no other Senator has come here
previous to this time who would acknowledge it, more is the pity. We have had no fraud in our
elections in South Carolina since 1884. There has been no organized Republican party in the
State.
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DOCUMENT 14 (CONTINUED)
“Their Own Hotheadedness”: Senator Benjamin R.“Pitchfork Ben” Tillman Justifies
Violence Against Southern Blacks

We did not disfranchise the negroes until 1895. Then we had a constitutional convention
convened which took the matter up calmly, deliberately, and avowedly with the purpose of
disfranchising as many of them as we could under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. We
adopted the educational qualification as the only means left to us, and the negro is as contented
and as prosperous and as well protected in South Carolina to-day as in any State of the Union
south of the Potomac. He is not meddling with politics, for he found that the more he meddled
with them the worse off he got. As to his ―rights‖—I will not discuss them now. We of the South
have never recognized the right of the negro to govern white men, and we never will. We have
never believed him to be equal to the white man, and we will not submit to his gratifying his lust
on our wives and daughters without lynching him. I would to God the last one of them was in
Africa and that none of them had ever been brought to our shores. But I will not pursue the
subject further.

I want to ask permission in this connection to print a speech which I made in the constitutional
convention of South Carolina when it convened in 1895, in which the whole carpetbag regime
and the indignities and wrongs heaped upon our people, the robberies which we suffered, and all
the facts and figures there brought out are incorporated, and let the whole of the facts go to the
country. I am not ashamed to have those facts go to the country. They are our justification for the
present situation in our State. If I can get it, I should like that permission; otherwise I shall be
forced to bring that speech here and read it when I can put my hand on it. I will then leave this
matter and let the dead past bury its dead.

Source: "Speech of Senator Benjamin R. Tillman, March 23, 1900," Congressional Record, 56th
Congress, 1st Session, 3223–3224. Reprinted in Richard Purday, ed.,Document Sets for the South
in U. S. History (Lexington, MA.: D.C. Heath and Company, 1991), 147.
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DOCUMENT 15
The Extent of Negro Progress
On December 18, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment declaring slavery abolished in the United States was
adopted. This freed the million or more slaves to whom the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 did not
apply. It may be said for this reason that January 1, 1866 was the beginning of the opportunity for the
Negroes in every part of the nation to make progress. In the past fifty-six years he has made a most
remarkable progress. What follows show the extent of this progress:

Gain in Fifty-six
1866 1922
years

ECONOMIC PROGRESS
Homes Owned 12,000 650,000 638,000
Farms Operated 20,000 1,000,000 980,000
Business Conducted 2,100 60,000 57,900
Wealth Accumulated $20,000,000 $1,500,000,000 $1,480,000,000

EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS
Per Cent Literate 10 80 70
Colleges and Normal Schools 15 500 485
Students in Public Schools 100,000 2,000,000 1,900,000
Teachers in all Schools 600 44,000 43,400
Property for Higher Education $60,000 $30,000,000 $29,940,000
Annual Expenditures for Education $700,000 $28,000,000 $27,300,000
Raised by Negroes $80,000 $2,000,000 $1,920,000

RELIGIOUS PROGRESS
Number of Churches 700 45,000 44,300
Number of Communicants 600,000 4,800,000 4,200,000
Number of Sunday Schools 1,000 46,000 45,000
Sunday School Pupils 500,000 2,250,000 2,200,000
Value of Church Property $1,500,000 $90,000,000 $88,500,000

Source: Monroe. N. Work. The Extent of Negro Progress. The Negro Yearbook, an Annual
Encyclopedia of the Negro, 1921-1922. The Negro Year Book Publishing Company: Tuskegee
Institute, 1922.
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Document 16
Educational Advertisements for Migrants [Howard University, etc.]

Source: Advertisements [Howard University, etc.], The Crisis, IXX (November, 1919), p. 351.
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DOCUMENT 17
Number and Percent of Negroes in United States Living In Urban and Rural
Communities, 1890, 1900, 1910, 1920

Number Per Cent

Year
Urban Rural Urban Rural
1920 3,559,473 6,903,658 34.0 66.0
1910 2,689,229 7,138,534 27.4 72.6
1900 2,005,972 6,828,022 22.7 77.3
1890 1,481,142 6,007,534 19.4 80.6

Source: Monroe. N. Work. Number and Percent of Negroes in United States Living In Urban
and Rural Communities, 1890, 1900, 1910, 1920. The Negro Yearbook, an Annual Encyclopedia
of the Negro, 1921-1922. The Negro Year Book Publishing Company: Tuskegee Institute, 1922.
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DOCUMENT 18
Letters from prospective migrants to Chicago Defender Newspaper
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DOCUMENT 18 (CONTINUED)
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DOCUMENT 19
Resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan

The original Ku Klux Klan had died out in the late 1870s as post-Civil War Reconstruction was
drawing to a close. In 1915, a new Klan was started in Stone Mountain, Georgia, by William
Simmons, a Methodist minister. Emphasizing costumes, rallies and secret rituals, the Klan grew
rapidly in the South.

The appeal of the Klan spread to the North and West, and at its peak in the mid-1920s achieved a
total membership of four million or more. Members served in state legislatures and Congress,
and were elected to the governorship in several states. Indiana, Oklahoma, Texas and Oregon
saw significant Klan influence.

Blacks were the subject of Klan activity in both the North and South, as were Jews, Catholics
and immigrants. The Klan also organized to oppose the teaching of evolution in the schools,
dissemination of birth control devices and information, and efforts to repeal prohibition.
Violence was not uncommon — public whippings, tarring and feathering, and lynching occurred
in many sections of the country.

The Klu Klux Klan hold a parade in

Richmond, Virginia
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CLARIFYING QUESTIONS:
Answer the following questions in complete sentences:

DOCUMENT 1
According to this Document, how would Abraham Lincoln feel about the situation for African-
Americans in the United States?

Page 3 of this document contains the sentence, ―Silence under these conditions means tacit
approval‖. What do you think the author means by this?

DOCUMENT 2
How does this document answer the Document Based Essay Question?

Why was ensuring their children had opportunities for education important to African-American
migrants?

DOCUMENT 3
This document describes the original goals of the NAACP, what specific topics do you think
they discussed at the 1917 Conference?

Look at the clothing of the people pictured in Document 3 and compare it with the clothing of
the children in Document 2, what might account for this difference?

DOCUMENT 4
What might have motivated African-Americans already living in Chicago to reach out and try to
help new African-American migrants?
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What type of assistance do you think was most needed by newly arrived migrants?

DOCUMENT 5
How did the end of World War I affect the lives of migrants in Northern Cities?

Do you think Arthur Dingle was happy with his decision to migrate north?

DOCUMENT 6
What specifically motivated Mrs. Lynch and her family to move north?

What were Mrs. Lynch’s complaints about life in Chicago?

DOCUMENT 7
Despite massive growth in numbers, the maps indicate that African-American people lived only
in certain areas of Chicago, why do you think that was the case?

Are neighborhoods segregated by race today?

DOCUMENT 8
The Chicago Defender had the phrase ―American Race Justice Must Be Destroyed‖ at the top of
every paper published, what does this tell us about the perspective of the newspaper and what
types of stories might be included?

Why do you think the newspaper became incredibly popular in the South?
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DOCUMENT 9
Some historians claim that the Boll Weevil was the biggest factor that contributed to the Great
Migration, why might this be true?

Use a dictionary to look up ―Tenant Farming‖ and describe how this term relates to Document 9.

DOCUMENT 10
The Great Migration is directly related to the rise of Blues Music in America, how are the lyrics
of this song similar or different than those found in today’s popular music?

The last line of each stanza is ―I'm bound to leave this place‖. What do you think is meant by ―this
place‖?

DOCUMENT 11
The author of this opinion article seems especially angry that lynch mobs frequently took victims
from jails without police officers intervening, why do you think this is?

Do you think that this article reflects a change in white public opinion towards the widespread
racist violence in the country? Why or Why not?

DOCUMENT 12
Document 12 describes what seems like a ridiculous law by today’s standards. How do you
think African-Americans living in Richmond, Virginia might have reacted to this new law?

How does this document answer the Document Based Question for the Great Migration Essay?
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DOCUMENT 13
The Tennessee laws outlined in this document can be interpreted as an attempt to keep African-
Americans in poverty, how so?

Imagine you are a poor African-American parent living in Tennessee in 1901, why might this be
motivation to move north?

DOCUMENT 14
This speech was delivered in front of the United States Senate by a Senator, what does that say
about the social acceptance of racist viewpoints in the era?

What fears does Senator Tillman refer to in this speech? How does he justify violence
committed against African-Americans?

DOCUMENT 15
What is your impression of the chart and why might it have been included in the document
packet?

Why do you think the author used these three categories, Economic, Educational, and Religious
Progress, in the chart?

DOCUMENT 16
The advertisements in this document were published in The Crisis, an NAACP publication.
What types of opportunities are advertised in this document?

How might this have motivated African-Americans in the South to migrate north?
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DOCUMENT 17
This document focuses on the scale of the Great Migration. What percentage of an increase was
documented in the three cities with the most growth in African-American population from 1910-
1930?

The Great Migration was not just about African-Americans moving from south to north, it also
contributed to urbanization in America. Why do you think people accustomed to living in rural
areas would move to big cities?

DOCUMENT 18
From reading these letters, what concerns seem to be most common among the people
considering migrating north?

Choose one of the letters and put yourself in that person’s shoes (Indicate which letter you are
focusing on). What are your biggest hopes and fears regarding moving north?

Try to imagine living as an African-American in the south during this time period. What
emotions do the writers of these letters evoke?

DOCUMENT 18
The Klu Klux Klan was powerful enough during this era to actually control the governments of
several states. What does this fact tell us about the possibility of justice for African-Americans
in these states?

Look at the newspaper clipping on the bottom right. Imagine 2,000 people storming a Sherriff’s
home to abduct a young man and lynch him, without an investigation of the crime he was
accused of or a trial. How might you have reacted if you were an African-American living in
this town?