Where did the Great migration start?

The Great Migration was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960.  During the initial wave the majority of migrants moved to major northern cities such as Chicago, Illiniois, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York, New York.  By World War II the migrants continued to move North but many of them headed west to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.

The first large movement of blacks occurred during World War I, when 454,000 black southerners moved north.  In the 1920s, another 800,000 blacks left the south, followed by 398,000 blacks in the 1930s.  Between 1940 and 1960 over 3,348,000 blacks left the south for northern and western cities.

The economic motivations for migration were a combination of the desire to escape oppressive economic conditions in the south and the promise of greater prosperity in the north.  Since their Emancipation from slavery, southern rural blacks had suffered in a plantation economy that offered little chance of advancement.  While a few blacks were lucky enough to purchase land, most were sharecroppers, tenant farmers, or farm labors, barely subsiding from year to year.  When World War I created a huge demand for workers in northern factories, many southern blacks took this opportunity to leave the oppressive economic conditions in the south.

The northern demand for workers was a result of the loss of 5 million men who left to serve in the armed forces, as well as the restriction of foreign immigration. Some sectors of the economy were so desperate for workers at this time that they would pay for blacks to migrate north.  The Pennsylvania Railroad needed workers so badly that it paid the travel expenses of 12,000 blacks.  The Illinois Central Railroad, along with many steel mills, factories, and tanneries, similarly provided free railroad passes for blacks.  World War I was the first time since Emancipation that black labor was in demand outside of the agricultural south, and the economic promise was enough for many blacks to overcome substantial challenges to migrate.

In additional to migrating for job opportunities, blacks also moved north in order to escape the oppressive conditions of the south.  Some of the main social factors for migration included lynching, an unfair legal system, inequality in education, and denial of suffrage.

The great migration, one of the largest internal migrations in the history of the United States, changed forever the urban North, the rural South, African America and in many respects, the entire nation.

One of the most sought-after experiences for wildlife and nature enthusiasts, the Great Migration is the ever-moving circular migration of over a million animals across the Serengeti-Mara ecosystem. The constant movement of columns of wildebeest, joined by a host of companions, follow an age-old route in search of grazing and water. After calving in the southern part of Tanzania's Serengeti near the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, the animals journey through the Serengeti up and around in a clockwise direction towards the Masai Mara in Kenya, before returning once again near the end of the year. Along the way, high drama is always present, as thousands of animals are taken by predators and thousands more are born, replenishing the numbers and sustaining the circle of life.

Below, learn more about what is the Great Migration; find a broad overview of how the migration moves at different times throughout the year; or read some frequently asked questions about the Great Migration.

Alternatively, use the menu tabs below for detailed information on when to travel (including a map of the annual migration), which areas and camps to stay at when on a Great Migration safari, or to view a photo and video gallery of the Great Migration.

Over the course of the 20th century, more than seven million African Americans left homes in the South to resettle in northern and western states. Historians have long described this exodus as the Great Migration, great not just because of the numbers of people who moved but also because of the social and political consequences. Once a people of the South, Black Americans became increasingly part of the big cities of all regions and in those urban settings steadily gained political and cultural influence. The Great Migration was thus key to the struggles and accomplishments of the long civil rights movement.

This page introduces resources for exploring the Great Migration, including several sets of interactive maps and tables showing where people settled and where they came from decade by decade.

How Many?

Migration out of the South was not new to the 20th Century, but volumes escalated through the first three decades of the new century, reaching a peak during World War I and the 1920s. Jobs in the North were part of the lure, especially as labor shortages encouraged companies to relax customary whites-only hiring restrictions. But other factors were also involved, notably the chance to exchange Jim Crow subordination for the greater freedom of cities outside the South.

Migration slowed dramatically in the 1930s, then soared during World War II and the two decades following, a period sometimes called the Second Great Migration. After the 1960s, rates of migration began to decline noticeably and by the 1980s former southerners were among those looking for opportunities in the new economy of the South, now renamed the Sunbelt.

The chart at right shows estimates of the volume of migration out of the South during each decade. It is based on calculations using the census survival method reported in James Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America. Since the publication of that book, Leah Platt Bouston (Competition in the Promised Land: Black Migrants in Northern Cities and Labor Markets) refined the method and clarified data problems that complicate estimates for the 1960s and 1970s. Accordingly, the chart reports only loose estimates for those decades.

Where does the Great Migration start in Africa?

Where was the greatest movement during the Great Migration?

Which two regions did the Great Migration heavily affect?

Which two cities were the most popular destinations during the Great Migration?