1910s - 1920s
The Great Migration First wave (1915-25): 1.7
million Reasons:
need for black labor to replace immigrants during World War I
Boll weevil infestations in South Jim Crow & lynching
Took bottom-end jobs & employed family strategies Mostly young, inexperienced
adults Depended on women’s wages Had trouble adjusting to
industrial work discipline Sometimes recruited as
strikebreakers led to hostilities with unions West Virginia coal mines paid
$3.20 - $5.00 for 8-hour day
Letters to the Chicago Defender
The Great Migration
Chicago Monument “The Reason”
Chicago Race Riot, 1919:Background
Clearly defined black belt emerged after Great Fire of 1871 Mostly on South Side Over 80% of blacks in 1910 not native to Illinois By 1910, over 30% lived in predominantly black
neighborhoods, 60% in neighborhoods at least 20% black
Black population doubled in less than a decade to 109,000 by 1920 Led to firece competition for jobs, housing, etc. Resentment built as blacks moved into previously
all-white neighborhoods Economic & political competition especially with
Irish Americans
Chicago Race Riot, 1919
Returning WWI veterans determined to make America “safe for democracy” 10 soldiers lynched, along with 65 other blacks, in
1919 25 race riots across country, but Chicago was the
worst Riot began July 27 when 17-year-old Eugene
Williams killed for crossing color line at beach
13 days of sporadic violence left 38 dead (15 white, 23 black) and 537 injured (178
white, 342 black, 17 unknown) White mobs burned sections of South Side,
leaving over 1,000 homeless
Chicago Race Riot: Map
Chicago Riot Photographs
Langston Hughes(1902-1967)
Attended Columbia & Lincoln Universities
Weary Blues (1926) Fine Clothes to the
Jew (1927)
Countee Cullen(1903-1946)
Studied at New York University (B.A., 1925) & Harvard (M.A., 1926)
Color (1925) – first book of poems, published at age 22
Claude McKay (1889-1948)
Emigrated from Jamaica in 1912 at age 21
Attended Tuskegee & Kansas State
Harlem Shadows (1922) – poems
Home to Harlem (1928) – novel
Zora Neale Hurston(1903-1960)
Attended Howard University & graduated from Barnard College in 1928
Did graduate work at Columbia University
Collected African American folk tales
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
Born & raised in Washington, D.C.
Duke Ellington Orchestra opened at the Cotton Club in Dec. 1927
Hired composer-arranger Billy Strayhorn in 1938