In the 1930's the majority of African Americans lived in the south, where they were treated like second class citizens and segregation dominated the landscape. In the 1940's many traveled north to Chicago where jobs were plentiful and blacks were allowed to vote. View Video.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and professor Isabel Wilkerson looks at the "Great Migration" that took place from 1915 to 1970 in her book The Warmth of Other Suns. The migration involved 6 million African-Americans who left the South in search of a better life. View Video.
African Americans migrated to New York from the rural south after the War. A vast influx came by plane from Puerto Rico and other terribly poor Caribbean islands. View Video.
This program portrays the Jim Crow era, when African Americans struggled to build their own worlds within the harsh, narrow confines of segregation. At the turn of the 20th century, a steady stream of African Americans left the South, fleeing the threat of racial violence and searching for opportunities in the North and West. View Video.
Between World War I and World War II many African Americans living in the south sought better lives in the north, resulting in a revolution in dance, visual arts, and music. View Video.
Professor of American studies and history Matthew Frye Jacobson talks about "the great Black migration" from the rural south to the urban north, and credits this for the ultimate acceptance enjoyed by white immigrant groups. View Video.
Experts discuss the African American migration to the North after the Civil War and what going on the road meant. Music resonates with the idea of the open road. We hear a quote from Mark Twain about traveling companions. View Video.