Troubles in the South

From the early years of the twentieth century going into the middle age almost every African American family in the South where most African Americans reside, have a decision to make. Black farmers want to leave the plantations and work in better environments, those with skills want to work in more professional settings without being discriminated and others like yard boys were scared of making minor gestures at planters wife that could get them killed or hung on trees. Considering the fact that they were locked in these conditions almost each family had to make a decision either to migrate to the North or stay in the South.

About 89% of African Americans live in the south before The Great Migration but by 1970, this was true of only 53% of the African American population.  “The great Migration”, symbolizes the largest movement of any race in American history.  In “The Warmth of Other Suns”, Isabel Wilkerson’s chronicle of this crucial event mentioned, “It was during the First World War that a silent pilgrimage took its first steps within the border of this country. The fever rose without warning or notice or much in the way of understanding by those outside its reach. It would not end until the 1970s and would set into motion changes in the North and South that no one, not even the people doing the leaving, could have imagined at the start of it or dreamed would take nearly a lifetime to play out...”  Most of these migrants migrated to seek freedom and a better economic status. The south was a hostile environment for African Americans especially during the Jim Crow era. In 1868, following ratification of the 14th and 15th amendments, which granted full citizenship to emancipated slaves, African-Americans achieved a number of elected positions in newly established regional governments in the South.  However, after the withdrawal of Union troops from the South in 1876, a series of local and state laws, commonly known as Jim Crow laws, legalized segregation and political disenfranchisement for African-Americans.  Often this legal oppression was augmented by violence and intimidation from groups opposed to African-American equality. This is one of the main reasons that caused The Great Migration; this is because they felt unsafe in the South and the segregation has also caused unfair treatments in the work industry. The situation in the South has gone beyond discrimination and segregation, there was physical violence. During this time African American were lynched for things that are not considered crimes today. For example an African American can be if a white person accused him if acting impertinent. 

To further explain my point in the article Violence and Economic Mobility in the Jim Crow South, Jamelle Bouie mentioned “….not only could you be killed for transgressing the nebulous and arbitrary social requirements of the Jim Crow, but you could also be killed for starting a business, accumulating wealth and otherwise trying to improve your situation. The economic resources in the south were limited and the civil had played a part in that. There was a major decline in investments in the region and most of them did not get the lands they thought will be granted to them. This has force them to work as sharecroppers for the white landowners. The white landowners were taking advantage of them and forcing them to sign contracts that will put them into debt through the use of violence threats.

Works Cited

Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Subs: the Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. Random House, 2010.

Bouie Jamelle “Violence and Economic Mobility in the Jim Crow South.” The Nation 29 July 2011. Web 11/10/2017