Migrations
When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed less than 8 percent
of the African-American population lived in the Northeast or Midwest.
Even by 1900, approximately 90 percent of all African- Americans still
resided in the South. However, migration from the South has long been
a significant feature of black history. An early exodus from the South
occurred between 1879 and 1881, when about 60,000 African-Americans
moved into Kansas and others settled in the Oklahoma Indian Territories
in search of social and economic freedom.
In the early decades of the twentieth century, movement of blacks
to the North increased tremendously. The reasons for this "Great Migration," as
it came to be called, are complex. Thousands of African-Americans left
the South to escape sharecropping, worsening economic conditions, and
the lynch mob. They sought higher wages, better homes, and political
rights. Between 1940 and 1970 continued migration transformed the country's
African-American population from a predominately southern, rural group
to a northern, urban one.
The movement of African-Americans within the United States continues
today. Further research in the Library's general and special collections
could help assess how migration affected social and economic changes
in individual cities, towns, neighborhoods, and even families.
Statistical and Geographical Patterns
Maps As Tools in Tracing Migration Patterns [chart][map]
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Maps and atlases are useful tools in tracing migration
patterns. Probably the first atlases to include maps portraying
the distribution of blacks in the United States were statistical
ones based on United States censuses. The bar graph from the eleventh
census shows the percentage of whites and blacks for sixteen states
at each census from 1790 to 1890. The map shows the proportion
of colored people (a term used to include blacks, Chinese, Japanese,
and Indians) and their distribution and density per square mile.
Statistical Atlas of the United States, Based upon the Results
of the Eleventh Census, p. 18 Henry Gannett, ed. Washington:
GPO, 1898 Bar graph Geography
and Map Division (95)
Statistical Atlas of the United States, Based upon the Results
of the Eleventh Census, Map 29, Plate 11 Henry Gannett, ed.
Washington: GPO, 1898 Color map Geography
and Map Division (96) |
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By 1950, the black population comprised approximately
eleven percent of the population of the United States, while black
migrants comprised forty percent of the population in several of
the U.S. major cities. This 1950 map shows counties with 500 or
more blacks and their distribution, and graphically represents
how the black population had become concentrated in northern cities
during the first half of the twentieth century.
Distribution of Negro Population by County: Showing each
County with 500 Negro Population, 1950 Samuel Fitzsimmons United
States. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census, Volume
11, 1950 Color map Geography
and Map Division (97) |
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