Migration: a key theme in the African American experience

Each year, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) designates a theme for Black History Month. In February 2019, the focus is on “Black Migrations.”

From the beginning, the African American story has been marked by migration, starting with the forced migration of the millions of people taken from their homelands and sold as slaves across the Americas during the African Diaspora. For over two centuries, the first generations of African Americans were forced to move around the country against their will until slavery finally ended with the Civil War.

A new wave of voluntary black migration began in the early 20th century, a period known as the Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1970, millions of African Americans fled the oppressive economic conditions and racial segregation laws in the rural South in search of better employment opportunities in cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York City and Los Angeles in the North and West.

The Great Migration forever transformed American culture and society. In addition to increasing the racial diversity of American cities and helping to fuel US industrial development, the influx of southern black workers gave rise to the Harlem Renaissance, an artistic movement named after the New York neighborhood where many migrants settled. Some of the acclaimed artists who were part of this rebirth of African American arts and culture include musician Louis Armstrong, writer Zora Neal Hurston, painter Aaron Douglas and poet Langston Hughes. The movement also led to a new era of black social activism that prepared the way for the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.

To learn more about this year’s Black History Month theme, visit the ASALH website: asalh.org.