The Great Migration was the movement of six million African Americans from the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and West, and occurred between 1915 and 1970. In total, Chicago attracted more than 500,000 African Americans during this time period. Between 1917 and 1920, 700,000 to one million African Americans left the South. In the first wave of migration between 1915 and 1940, Chicago’s Black population doubled from 2 percent to 4 percent of the total population. The primary factors that spurred migration was the lack of social and economic opportunities that were afforded to African Americans under Jim Crow in the South. Additionally, during World War I (WWI) there were labor shortages in the North, resulting in thousands of jobs in steel mills, railroads, meatpacking plants, and the automobile industry.
Due to racialized restrictive covenants and racist defensive localism on the part of ethnic whites, many African Americans who migrated to Chicago resided in a narrow strip of blocks in the South Side, stretching from 22nd to 51st Street. The neighborhood was initially labeled as the “Black Belt,” but would later be called “Bronzeville.” The city’s leading newspaper,
The Chicago Defender waged an extensive campaign to encourage Black people to move north. During WWI, European immigration waned, causing employers to seek new sources of labor. While only African American men were hired in the factories, women were also employed for domestic work.
The Chicago Defender helped connect African American migrants to these jobs. While a significant number of Black people who moved to the city did improve their lives and social conditions, they also dealt with crowded tenement housing, limited educational opportunities, violence, discrimination, segregation, and indifference from city government.
Ultimately, Black migration to Chicago would have lasting effects. The movement of African Americans to Chicago dramatically altered the city's demographics. In 1890 three-quarters of the city’s population was first or second generation immigrant. At that time African Americans made up 2 percent of the city. During WWI, the African American population doubled to around 100,000. Other than changing the demographics of the city, the migration would have immense impact on the cultural life of Chicago—especially during the Chicago Renaissance of the 1930s and 1940s, which brought about the emergence of blues music and poetry.
