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