The Great Migration

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The Great Migration “’The North has reached the point where it is ready to echo almost anything the South chooses to assert’” (Boyle 79). As the memory of the Civil War faded, Northern whites began to take more and more after the whites of the South. Migrating African-Americans found that the North didn’t really measure up to the promise land due to the rise of Jim Crow, which was aided by the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling as well as discrimination in the job and housing market. The rise of Jim Crow led to increased racial tension. Although Jim Crow was very famous in the South, Jim Crow also took place in the North. As the migration of African-Americans to the North grew stronger, whites looked to segregate public places such as restaurants, hotels, theaters, as well as other public venues (Boyle 78). For example, Ossian Sweet attended Wilberforce University, which was right outside of Xenia, Ohio. The city had once been proud of this college that was for African-Americans but now due to the rise of Jim Crow, they refused to let the college use any of the town’s facilities or services (Boyle 79). This is just one example of how whites segregated from African-Americans. Another place where segregation occurred was in schools. The Plessy v. Ferguson decision ruled that there could be segregation if the segregated facilities were equal. Segregated schools were very popular in the South but also took place in the North. The problem with this was that the schools were nowhere near equal. African-Americans had very poor school facilities and materials, so they were not getting the same education as the white children, which continued the superiority of the white race. African-Americans looking to attend college also faced ... ... middle of paper ... ...one example of how African-Americans were forced to live in big cities and how the North wasn’t as promising as it was supposed to be. Many African-Americans migrated North in hope of a better life than the South had to offer. They dreamed of better jobs, higher wages, better living conditions, and a life of less hatred. They would soon find out that the North wasn’t as promising as they hoped. The hope of a better life would soon be gone, as many African-Americans would have to settle for low paying unskilled jobs and high cost of living in the ghettos of the industrial cities. Although the North wasn’t nearly as bad as the South it wasn’t as nice as it had been made out to be. The spread of Jim Crow throughout the United States would ultimately keep many African-American migrants impoverished and would leave long lasting effects that can still be seen today.

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