ABSTRACT
Southern blacks, mired in a cycle of vicious racism and limited economic opportunities, took advantage of a severe labor shortage during World War I to commence a 'Great Migration' to Northern and Midwestern cities. Like any mass migration of peoples, the African Americans moving north and west responded to both 'push' and 'pull' factors. Lynchings, segregation, limited educational opportunities, police brutality, and abuse by Southern whites combined with a series of crop failures to 'push' blacks northward. 'Pull' factors included well-paid industrial jobs and information, spread by the black press, that Northern cities were havens of opportunity for African Americans. Northern cities were hardly free of racism, but World War I caused a sharp decline in European immigration and a skyrocketing demand for industrial goods. The Great Migration practically emptied parts of the Southern countryside. As with the migration of the Exodusters a generation earlier, entire families or communities often made the trek together.
