ABSTRACT
During World War I, over 400,000 acted on their inner convictions and left their predominantly rural Southern homes for Northern and Midwestern cities. In Mississippi alone, nearly 100,000 African-American migrants left for the paved pastures of the urban landscape. At the same time, the black populations of every major Northern city multiplied. In 1920, nearly forty percent of all African-Americans in the North lived in eight cities: New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Columbus, Ohio. The desire of many African-Americans to the leave the South extended back to the days of slavery. The migration was initiated more by the positive attractions of the North than the negative realities of the South. World War I—its demands for industrial goods, the associated decline in European immigration, and the military's enlistment of thousands of workers—created an abundance of jobs in many Northern cities.
