The Great Migration

Historians called the migration of southern blacks to northern and western urban areas the Great Migration. Many consider it the most under-reported story of the twentieth century. During the Great Migration of 1915-1970, blacks fled the South as though escaping from a curse. Included in that migration were Ida Mae Gladney, George Starling and Dr. Robert Pershing Foster – none of whom could bear living under the cruel restrictions of the Jim Crow south. Over the six decades when the Migration was at its most robust, some six million black southerners headed North and West to look for a better life – to live the American dream. This mass migration would out-number those heading west for the California Gold Rush and those fleeing the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma.

These black Americans set out on a venture of the unknown. Many had no plans beyond escaping but for the...