ABSTRACT
T he dual processes of urbanization and migration dramatically increased the proportion of blacks living in northerncities between 1916 and 1940. Before the twentieth century, black migration from rural to urban areas occurred within the South, but after the turn of the century, migration to the North grew considerably. In the sum-mer of 1916, a steady stream of descendants of slaves flowed northward to the booming war economies of cities such as Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Detroit. The flow quickly reached flood stage. In two years, more than 300,000 migrants made their way north. By 1930, nearly two million blacks had left the South. This dramatic demographic shift—called the Great Migration— involved the uneasy mingling of the cultures of southern and northern blacks and the eventual evolution of a new urban African-American culture.
