Allie
Groscost
Comparative
Literature 60ac
Professor
Masiello
Matt Gonzales' Discussion Friday 11-12
The Great Migration
The climate in America changed
dramatically during the last half of the nineteenth century. During the Civil
War, in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a
statement that would free millions of black slaves in the South. Upon the War’s
closure, however, many of these free people would realize that their troubles
were far from over.
After Lincoln’s assassination and
closer to the end of 1865, the 13th Amendment was ratified,
officially outlawing slavery. Reconstruction began – a series of federal measures
took hold in the South to divide up the former Confederacy and guarantee free
people their civil rights. In response to this, Southern states put in place
their own “black codes”, which allowed basic rights for blacks but severely
limited their opportunities and rights as now-paid workers.
In the coming years, the 14th
and 15th Amendments would be ratified, defining citizenship and
granting blacks the right to vote. Once again, these important attempts at
integrating freed slaves into society and giving them equal rights were foiled
by the failure and end of Reconstruction, as well as the creation of Jim Crowe
laws. These laws barred African Americans from mixing with whites everywhere
from the post office to playing checkers, creating a “separate but equal”
environment (which was not truly equal).
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| Caricature about Jim Crow Laws |
Once slavery was abolished, many people
looked forward to being rightfully given portions of the land they had worked
on previously, in a concept known as “forty acres and a mule”. Instead, the
land claimed by the government during the Civil War was mostly returned to the
white plantation owners, who began a system known as sharecropping, in which they
would allow newly freed slaves to work on an allotted portion of their land in
exchange for a significant portion of their profit. This system did not allow
for the economic freedom of African Americans, who struggled under these newly
accrued debts, becoming essentially indentured servants. A major event that contributed
to this struggle was a boll weevil epidemic in the year 1898, which destroyed a
vast majority of crops in the South. This meant that a majority of what little
crops sharecroppers could grow went to their landlords, putting them deep into
debt if they borrowed money to use the sharecropper’s tools or other resources
to grow these meager yields of cheap cotton.
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| Sharecroppers |
Another pressure looming over “free”
African Americans in the South in the late nineteenth century was the threat of
domestic terrorism. Although the Ku Klux
Klan was officially disbanded in 1869, its racist ideals still maintained a
solid grip on the South during this time period and lynchings, intimidation,
and violence haunted blacks. It is
important to realize that although this was a significant threat to African
Americans, it was not a new one, and ultimately not the main reason they
relocated during the Great Migration.
All of these issues continued into the
twentieth century and the beginning of World War I. During this time, immigration
had been halted into the U.S. and many working-age men were enlisted into the
army, so help was needed creating the weaponry and supplies for the war effort.
This labor shortage drew many African
Americans to the North in search of actual equality and decent working
conditions. Black newspapers published success stories of transplanted workers,
and northern companies sent recruiters to the South to persuade them to come
work in the North. For many, the ability to move from place to place was freedom
– something slaves could never have done without being hunted down and possibly
killed.
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| Advertisement |
Desperate economic conditions, unsafe
environments, and a labor shortage in the North began uprooting blacks from the
South, creating an enormous displacement of people across the United States.
Spanning from 1915 to 1970, The Great Migration was an exodus in which more
than six million African Americans moved from the rural South to the urban
North. At the beginning of this movement, over 90% of blacks lived in the South,
and by the end, almost half had settled in the North or West.
At the beginning of this movement, white
landholders were not happy to see their cheap labor leaving. In addition,
African Americans who had already established themselves in the North were less
than delighted to admit newcomers into their environment. Isabel Wilkerson, the
first black woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize, discusses these points in
an NPR interview about her Great Migration book, The Warmth of Other Suns. She details how Southerners reenacted many of
the laws that had been previously been used to keep slaves in place to keep
African Americans in the South, as well as imposing fines and laws to keep
Northern recruiters out. She also explains the reinstatement of peonage laws,
which made it possible to be arrested for buying a train ticket and trying to
leave the horrible conditions there.
Wilkerson’s reasoning behind the lapse in support from African Americans
already in the North is that they were an extreme minority there and respected
in their professional roles in these communities. The influx of rural workers
posed a threat to their careers that were already difficult to maintain.
Once in the North, life was not
automatically a “piece of cake” for most African Americans. Although they
finally experienced the right to vote, they were met with hardships such as extreme
discrimination for job selection, exploitation, and low wages, and were the
first fired once soldiers returned home from World War I. Housing was a huge issue – competition for
houses and discrimination by white landlords led to a series of race riots in 1919.
In response to this, blacks often
created their own communities within these large cities, which led to important
cultural movements such as the Harlem Renaissance and the rise of jazz music.
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| Louis Armstrong |
The Great Migration significantly
impacted Zora Neale Hurston, as she took part in it. Growing up in Eatonville,
Florida, she moved to the North to attend school at Howard University and
Barnard College, joining the other writers of the Harlem Renaissance in New
York City. Although she later traveled all around the United States and around
the world, The Great Migration is an issue that directly impacted her heritage,
history, and ultimately her novel Their
Eyes Were Watching God. Without her experiences in Harlem, Zora Neale Hurston arguably would have never collaborated with other great writers such as Langston Hughes and would not have gotten mentorship from people such as Frank Boaz.
2. How can you see the influence of the Great Migration in the Modernist movement and today? Many people do not realize that this exodus ended in 1970, which is much more recent than the time period we typically think about when discussing topics like the effects of slavery. What specific aspects of this movement have been brushed over in history and how has this affected U.S. history, specifically in regards to Modernism? Keep this in mind as we cover other Harlem Renaissance writers.
Questions for the Class:
1. Given your previous knowledge of African American history and the information presented in this post, how do you think Zora Neale Hurston's life would have been different if the Great Migration did not occur? Do you think she would have had the opportunity to create written works that were read if not respected? How would other Harlem Renaissance writers have been affected; would they all have eventually crossed paths or is the Great Migration essential to the nurture and celebration of black culture and rise of different movements?2. How can you see the influence of the Great Migration in the Modernist movement and today? Many people do not realize that this exodus ended in 1970, which is much more recent than the time period we typically think about when discussing topics like the effects of slavery. What specific aspects of this movement have been brushed over in history and how has this affected U.S. history, specifically in regards to Modernism? Keep this in mind as we cover other Harlem Renaissance writers.
Works Cited
Giesen, James C. “Sharecropping”.
Georgiaencyclopedia.org, 2007. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.
“The Great Migration”. PBS.org, 2013. Web. 28
Sept. 2016.
"Great Migration: What Caused the Great
Migrations?" History in Dispute. Ed. Robert J.
Allison.
Vol. 3: American Social and Political Movements, 1900-1945: Pursuit of
Progress.
Detroit: St. James Press, 2000. 70-77. U.S. History in Context.
Web. 29
Sept.
2016.
History.com
Staff. “Great Migration”. History.com.
A + E Networks, 2010. Web. 28
“Jim Crow Laws”.
Wikiwand.com, 2016. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.
<http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Jim_Crow_laws>
Molly. “The
Harlem Renaissance”. 2015. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.
<http://blogs.cofc.edu/american-novel/2015/04/02/the-harlem-renaissance/>
NPR.org Staff.
“Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North”. NPR.org, 2010.
Web.
28 Sept. 2016. <http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129827444>
Wilkerson,
Isabel. “The Long-Lasting Legacy of the Great Migration”.
Smithsonianmag.com,
2016. Web. 28 Sept. 2016.
“Zora Neale
Hurston”. The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, 2016. Web. 28
Sept. 2016. <http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/jim-crow-and-great-
migration/timeline-terms/zora-neale-hurston>
Your post was a beautiful historical account of the Great Migration that was logical and lucid for the reader to follow. Your facts were very accurate and appropriate for the topic. However, I wish there would've been a little more connection to how the migration affected modernism and, in particular, the Harlem Renaissance. For example, what did the hopelessness and mentality of these migrants translate into cultural forms like jazz and dance? How did the concentration effect of African American migrants proliferate black modernist culture?
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ReplyDeleteI didn't realize that the Great Migration was so vast in that that by the end movement, over half of the African Americans population had moved to the North and West. This movement towards a better life can be seen throughout history. After the Emancipation, freed slaves want to go to the North to escape the Jim Crow laws and to find better jobs. Communities in the North wanted to help these people by providing resources and jobs. However, this influx of people also put economic pressure on African Americans already there because they are all looking for the same types of jobs. This tension between the establish communities vs the "immigrants" is also seen today with the immigration conflict in Europe from Syria. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer to the problem.
ReplyDeleteI love that your post explored the many intersecting factors that lead to the migration instead of minimizing the conflicts. I think the research you did on the topic was very thorough and precise. Like Kara, I would have loved to learn a bit more about the transition of the emotions of the migration into new cultural forms. On a bit of a tangent, I'm also interested in how the drafts for both World Wars affected African Americans apart from taking white men out of the work force. Were black men not also drafted or were they drafted in a smaller ratio? I also wonder if the wartime mentality throughout 1915-1970 affected the African American migration (apart from the job market) was it easier or harder for them to integrate in a wartime society?
ReplyDeleteIn response to the first question, I believe while some writers or artists of the Harlem Renaissance might have been met half way, most of the racist factors would still have been at play or possibly there wouldn't have been enough driving force for the Harlem Renaissance to make an impact.
ReplyDeleteThe Great Migration to the North can be contrasted with the founding of Eatonville in Their Eyes were Watching God. Rather than migrating to the cities of the North, the inhabitants of Eatonville remained in the South while at the same time trying to take ownership of it and transform it into their own.
ReplyDeleteWhile the Great Migration gave way to the Harlem Renaissance which produced notable black literature, there was notable black literature before the Harlem Renaissance that must not be forgotten. Also, in response to your first question, Zora's writings were not accepted by many artists of the Harlem Renaissance and I doubt that they were accepted by many people outside of the movement either due to deeply engrained racism that existed in the early 20th century. I think the Harlem Renaissance gained much of its popularity in retrospect as historians dug through black history to tell black stories that had been smothered and neglected by white culture. That being said, I do not think Zora's writing would have been what it was if the Harlem Renaissance and the Women's Suffrage Movement had not happened. She makes bold and controversial statements in her texts that clearly come from a movement in the black community to raise attention to neglected issues. She had to have been in a climate at least somewhat comfortable with these ideas in order for her to write her books. So I do believe that the Harlem Renaissance was necessary for Zora's writing to turn out the way it did, but I do not think that the Harlem Renaissance was the only contributing factor to black literature of this period and I believe that, one way or another, people would have expressed themselves and their frustrations in some outlet, even if the Great Migration had not happened and they were still in the South and not in Harlem.
ReplyDeleteAs we begin to read Their Eyes Were Watching God, I have particularly noticed constant movement and Janie's desire for new experiences. While I believe that with or without the Harlem Renaissance Zora Neale Hurston would still be a very impactful artist today, the emphasis on movement and its relationship to Janie's growth as a woman and liberated character should partially be credited to Hurston's experiences with the Great Migration. In addition, the rise of black towns such as Eatonville and the movement of African Americans to the north resulted in African Americans feeling socially and economically threatened. This is interesting to me because it seems like throughout There Eyes Were Watching God the black characters of Eatonville put down others through racist language and stereotypes.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite difficult for people to realize the uniqueness of the setting they live in, or the culture they call their own until they are exposed to new places and cultures. This is why I believe that it was essential for Zora Neale Hurston to experience a climate that contrasts that of the little rural town of Eatonville. By living in the urban northeast and studying ethnography at top universities, she was able to externalize her experiences growing up in a predominantly black community and analyze her own culture. This was the case for many black writers and artists partaking in the Great Migration, who contributed to the cultural analysis and celebration that was the Harlem Renaissance. The Harlem Renaissance was essentially an externalization and celebration of black culture through music, literature, dance, and art that resulted from the movement of African Americans to the north. The effects of this Renaissance can still be seen today in various art forms, specifically jazz and even rap.
ReplyDeleteConsidering Hurston's work was forgotten and then rediscovered, it is an interesting to contemplate whether it would be of note if it had not been associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Surely, there were writers that had been educated like Hurston that produced work outside the cultural epicenter of that time. One has to wonder if there is a literary work/author that is yet to be discovered. Also, how would a work like Their Eyes Were Watching God be received if it had been produced by an author that had spent their entire life in Eatonville? Would the voice be considered authentic rather than minstrelsy as it had at that time?
ReplyDeleteI appreciate that you discussed the variety and interplay of factors that contributed to the Great Migration. It seems that the Great Migration and the artistic and cultural movements it inspired developed in the face of immense adversity. In some ways, these movements served as defiant responses to the discrimination and hardships African Americans endured. The cultural celebration of the Harlem Renaissance was a testament to African Americans' refusal to be downtrodden and defeated. Similarly, in Hurston's novel, Janie's character and womanhood evolve through her own encounters with challenges, such as a marriage to a man she does not love and a life of repression when she remarries.
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ReplyDeleteI loved your thorough explanation of the history behind the great migration as well as its aftermath. This event really contributed to the modernist movement as it introduced new voices in different forms, including art, literature, and music. As these new voices travelled from the South to the North, many artists gained a larger audience, therefore I believe that the Great Migration really led to a greater appreciation of African American art and that without it, many African American artists would not have been able to share their talent, skill, and voice. Thus, the Great Migration did contribute to Hurston's career as it gave her an audience to write to, an audience that would read her work, even if it was not always appreciated.
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ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting post! In response to the second question, "What specific aspects of this movement have been brushed over in history and how has this affected U.S. history holistically?", I thought that the fact that "freed" African-Americans, through sharecropping, were essentially forced into a system similar to indentured servitude is usually brushed over in history. The ending of the Civil War and the ratification of the 13th Amendment are usually seen as events that completely freed African-Americans, but were they truly free if they were faced with economic, political, social, and cultural restrictions? Both the blatant discrimination that continued after slavery ended and the downplaying of this discrimination have affected US history a great deal, especially in regard to how African-Americans are perceived in society.
ReplyDeleteAs a true beginner in regard to African American literature, culture and studies, I am grateful for your additional knowledge to the little things I know about African Americans. Although I knew that it was not until the civil rights movement in the 60s did African Americans gain equal rights as all others, I did not realize that after abolition there was a time period when instead of being explicitly enslaved, some African Americans were enslaved economically. That being said, it is not hard to understand why true freedom, or at least what we deem as true freedom today, came to African Americans as late as in the 60s.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is possible that individual Harlem writers might have crossed paths at some point in their lives without the Great Migration, these fortuitous meetings would not have nearly had such striking impact on the Harlem Renaissance era. With the Great Migration, large numbers of Harlem authors were able to meet fellow authors from various backgrounds, each of whom had a different story, idea, or passion to share. Being exposed to so many different views, opinions, and knowledge let the Harlem authors come together to embrace and advance their culture as a collective group armed with a great spectrum of talent, passion, and dynamism.
ReplyDeleteWhile it is possible that individual Harlem writers might have crossed paths at some point in their lives without the Great Migration, these fortuitous meetings would not have nearly had such striking impact on the Harlem Renaissance era. With the Great Migration, large numbers of Harlem authors were able to meet fellow authors from various backgrounds, each of whom had a different story, idea, or passion to share. Being exposed to so many different views, opinions, and knowledge let the Harlem authors come together to embrace and advance their culture as a collective group armed with a great spectrum of talent, passion, and dynamism.
ReplyDeleteThe question you pose about the great migration and how the United States culture would be without it made me think about how I have seen these ideas play out today. For example, I was watching Luke Cage on netflix the other day. The setting of the story is in Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance is mentioned often. Jazz and Zora Neal Hurston is specifically mentioned many times as being rooted in African American Cultural History. Without the great migration, many of the greatest cultural movements would never have occurred. Even more interesting, is that the affect of the Great Migration is still being felt half a decade later.
ReplyDeleteThe question you pose about the great migration and how the United States culture would be without it made me think about how I have seen these ideas play out today. For example, I was watching Luke Cage on netflix the other day. The setting of the story is in Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance is mentioned often. Jazz and Zora Neal Hurston is specifically mentioned many times as being rooted in African American Cultural History. Without the great migration, many of the greatest cultural movements would never have occurred. Even more interesting, is that the affect of the Great Migration is still being felt half a decade later.
ReplyDelete