PANEL

DESCRIPTION

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During World War I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans

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The war had caused a labor shortage in northern industry. Citizens of foreign countries were returning to their native lands.

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From every southern town migrants left by the hundreds to travel north.

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All other sources of labor having been exhausted, the migrants were the last resource.

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Migrants were advanced passage on the railroads, paid for by northern industry. Northern industry was to be repaid by the migrants out of their future wages.

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The trains were crowded with migrants.

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The migrant, whose life had been rural and nurtured by the earth, was now moving to urban life dependent on industrial machinery.

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Some left because of promises of work in the North. Others left because their farms had been devastated by floods.

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They left because the boll weevil had ravaged the cotton crop.

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They were very poor.

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Food had doubled in price because of the war.

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The railroad stations were at times so crowded with people leaving that special guards had to be called to keep order.

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The crops were left to dry and rot. There was no one to tend them.

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For African Americans there was no justice in the southern courts.

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There were lynchings.

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After a lynching the migration quickened.

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Tenant farmers received harsh treatment at the hands of planters.

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The migration gained in momentum.

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There had always been discrimination.

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In many of the communities the Black press was read with great interest. It encouraged the movement.

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Families arrived at the station very early. They did not wish to miss their trains north.

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Migrants left. They did not feel safe. It was not wise to be found on the streets late at night. They were arrested on the slightest provocation.

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The migration spread.

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Their children were forced to work in the fields. They could not go to school.

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They left their homes. Soon some communities were left almost empty.

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And people all over the South continued to discuss this great movement.

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Many men stayed behind until they could take their families north with them.

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The labor agent sent south by northern industry was familiar presence in Black communities.

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The labor agent recruited unsuspecting laborers as strike breakers for northern industries.

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In every southern home people met to decide whether or not to go north.

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The migrants found improved housing when they arrived north.

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The railroad stations in the South were crowded with northbound travelers.

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Letters from relatives in the North told of the better life there.

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The Black press urged the people to leave the South.

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They left the South in great numbers. They arrived in the North in great numbers.

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Migrants arrived in Chicago, the gateway to the West.

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Many migrants found work in the steel industry.

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They also worked on the railroads.

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Railroad platforms were piled high with luggage.

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The migrants arrived in great numbers.

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The South was desperate to keep its cheap labor. Northern labor agents were jailed or forced to operate in secrecy.

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To make it difficult for the migrants to leave, they were arrested in masse. They often missed their trains.

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In a few sections of the South leaders of both Black and White communities met to discuss ways of making the South a good place to live.

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But living conditions were better in the North.

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The migrants arrived in Pittsburgh, one of the great industrial centers of the North.

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Industries boarded their workers in unhealthy quarters. Labor camps were numerous.

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As the migrant population grew, good housing became scare. Workers were forced to live in overcrowded and dilapidated tenement houses.

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Housing was a serious problem.

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They found discrimination in the North. It was a different kind.

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Race riots were numerous. While workers were hostile toward the migrants who had been hired to break strikes.

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African Americans seeking to find better housing attempted to move into new areas. This resulted in the bombing of their new homes.

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One of the most violent race riots occurred in East St. Louis.

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African Americans, long-time residents of northern cities, met the migrants with aloofness and disdain.

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For the migrants, the church was the center of life.

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The migrants, having moved suddenly into a crowded and unhealthy environment, soon contracted tuberculosis. The death rate rose.

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The African American professionals were forced to follow their clients in order to make a living.

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The female workers were the last to arrive north.

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In the North the African American had more educational opportunities.

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In the North they had the freedom to vote.

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And the migrants kept coming.