Great Migration Timeline

Migrants going to Pittsburgh and surrounding mill towns in western Pennsylvania between 1890 and 1930 faced racial discrimination and limited economic opportunities. The Black population in Pittsburgh jumped from 6,000 in 1880 to 27,000 in 1910.

Image source: History of Pittsburgh

In 1900–01, Chicago had a total population of 1,754,473. By 1920, the city had added more than 1 million residents, fueled heavily by Black migrants arriving during the Great Migration.

Image source: History of Chicago

Black migration picked up from the start of the new century, with 204,000 leaving the South in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Between 1910 and 1930, the African-American population in Northern states increased by about 40% as a result of migration, mostly to major cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, Baltimore, and New York City.

Between 1910 and 1920, the number of Black workers employed in industry nearly doubled from 500,000 to 901,000, reflecting the demand for labor in Northern factories during and after World War I.

In 1910, the African-American population of Detroit was 6,000. By the start of the Great Depression in 1929, the city's African-American population had increased to 120,000 as migrants sought industrial jobs.

Image source: History of Detroit

Some historians analyze the Great Migration in two parts, a first Great Migration (1910–1940), during which about 1.6 million people moved from mostly rural areas in the South to northern industrial cities.

Around 1.2 million European immigrants arrived during 1914 while only 300,000 arrived the next year, creating labor shortages in Northern industrial cities that drew Black southern migrants northward.

It is conservatively estimated that 400,000 African Americans left the South in 1916 through 1918 to take advantage of a labor shortage in industrial cities during the First World War.

In 1917, the East St. Louis riots broke out as white workers violently attacked Black residents and migrants, highlighting the racial tensions that accompanied the rapid influx of Black labor into industrial cities.

Image source: East St. Louis massacre

As the war ended in 1918, many men returned home to find out their jobs had been taken by Black men who were willing to work for far less, fueling resentment that contributed to the racial violence of 1919.

Image source: Red Summer

The late summer and autumn of 1919 came to be known as the Red Summer, as violence and prolonged rioting between Black and White Americans plagued major U.S. cities amid postwar tensions over jobs and housing.

By 1920, 4.3% of Cleveland's population was African American, reflecting the significant influx of Black migrants into Ohio industrial centers during the first wave of the Great Migration.

Image source: History of Cleveland

Pittsburgh's Black population increased to 37,700 in 1920 (6.4% of the total) while the Black element in Homestead, Rankin, Braddock, and others nearly doubled.

The authors of The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot, an official report from 1922 on race relations in Chicago, came to the conclusion that there were many factors that led to the violent outbursts in Chicago.

Image source: Negro league baseball

From 1924 to 1929, the "Black Metropolis" on Chicago's South Side was at the peak of its golden years, a flourishing center of Black business, culture, and political life created by migrants.

By 1930, there were 1.3 million former southerners living in other regions of the United States, a testament to the scale of the first wave of the Great Migration.

In Mississippi, the Black American population decreased from about 56% of the population in 1910 to about 37% by 1970, remaining the majority only in some Delta counties.

In Georgia, Black Americans decreased from about 45% of the population in 1910 to about 26% by 1970, illustrating the demographic transformation caused by mass migration.

In South Carolina, the Black population decreased from about 55% of the population in 1910 to about 30% by 1970, ending its status as a Black-majority state.

Also, between 1936 and 1959, Black income relative to White income more than doubled in various skilled trades, reflecting improved economic opportunities for migrants and their descendants.

As a result of economic advancements, the percentage of Black families living below the poverty line declined from 87% in 1940 to 47% by 1960 and to 30% by 1970.

Between 1940 and 1960, the number of Black people in managerial and administrative occupations doubled, along with the number of Black people in white-collar occupations, while the number of Black agricultural workers in 1960 fell to one-fourth of what it was in 1940.

By 1960, half of the Black Americans in the South lived in urban areas, and by 1970, more than 80% of Black Americans nationwide lived in cities.

By 1970, more than 10.6 million African Americans lived outside the South, 47% of the nation's total, compared with only 740,000 (8%) in 1900.

In the long term, the National Housing Act of 1934 contributed to limiting the availability of loans to urban areas, particularly those areas inhabited by African Americans, entrenching segregation in Northern cities receiving migrants.

Image source: National Housing Act of 1934

The Second Great Migration (1940–1970) began after the Great Depression, during which at least five million people—including townspeople with urban skills—moved to the North and West.

During the second wave of the Great Migration (1940–60), the African-American population in Chicago grew from 278,000 to 813,000, transforming the city's demographics and culture.