WEBVTT

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Imagine, if you will, looking at a demographic

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map of the United States. And we're looking at

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the year 1910. OK, 1910. Right. But I don't want

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you to think of it just as like a flat piece

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of paper. Think of it more like a snow globe.

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Oh, I like that. A snow globe. Yeah, because

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for decades leading up to this exact moment,

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the snow inside this globe has been completely

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settled. The distribution of the population,

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specifically the African -American population,

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is heavily, I mean, overwhelmingly concentrated

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in one specific region. Right, the American Sound.

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Exactly. It's static. It's this localized demographic

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reality that has held relatively steady since

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literally the founding of the country. And then...

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History essentially picks up that snow globe

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and just gives it the most violent, sustained,

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and transformative shake imaginable. That is

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a remarkably apt visual to start us off. Because

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when we talk about the movement of people within

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the borders of this country, the sheer scale

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of what happened next is, well, It's actually

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quite difficult to wrap your mind around. It

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really is. We are just talking about a trickle

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of relocation, you know, or some slow generational

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drift. We are talking about a fundamental seismic

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rewiring of the nation's entire human geography.

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So welcome to today's Deep Dive. Our mission

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today is to explore one of the most massive rapid

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internal movements in recorded history. The Great

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Migration. Yes, the Great Migration. We are going

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to unpack the period from roughly 1910 to 19...

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That's a 60 year window where six million African

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Americans relocated from the rural south to the

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urban north and west. Six million people. It's

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staggering. It's massive. And for you listening,

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whether you are someone who, you know, geeks

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out over labor economics or you're fascinated

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by American history, or maybe you just really

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want to know the true literal origins of your

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favorite music, understanding this migration

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is the ultimate shortcut to understanding modern

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American cities. Absolutely. metropolis you can

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think of Chicago New York Detroit Los Angeles

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Philadelphia they were all fundamentally reshaped

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by this event and to do this justice we are drawing

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on a really comprehensive stack of sources today

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We're looking at historical demographic statistics,

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census data spanning over a century, sociological

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reports from the era, and deep cultural analyses.

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Yeah, the sources are incredibly detailed on

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every facet of this Exodus. They really are.

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And the central question we are trying to answer

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from all this data is really one of logistics

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and motivation. Right. Okay, let's unpack this.

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How did a population that was 90 % concentrated

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in the American South in 1910 manage to completely

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redistribute itself across the entire United

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States? And completely change the nation's cultural

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and economic DNA in the process? Exactly. Because

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moving six million people before the invention

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of the interstate highway system, before the

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internet, before modern communication, I mean,

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that doesn't just happen by accident. No, it

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absolutely doesn't. And to understand the mechanics

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of that movement, we have to look at the starting

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point. Let's look at the Let's sense this data

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from our sources for a second. Hey, let's hear

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it. From the earliest U .S. population statistics

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back in 1780, all the way until 1910, that 90

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% concentration figure held incredibly steady.

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Wow. 1780 to 1910. So well over a century of

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virtually no movement. Right. African Americans

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made up the absolute demographic majority of

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the population in three entire southern states.

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Louisiana until about 1890, South Carolina until

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the 1920s, and Mississippi all the way until

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the 1930s. Which means, logically, before we

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can even begin to talk about where these millions

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of people were going, we first have to understand

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the absolute pressure cooker they were leaving

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behind. Yes, the push factors. Right, because

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nobody leaves the only home they've ever known,

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the place where their families have lived and

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been buried for generations, unless the alternative

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of staying is simply unbearable. Exactly. So

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let's talk about that push. What was the environment

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like in the South in 1910 that necessitated this

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mass exodus? Well, the South during this era

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was defined by a severe multi -layered social

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and economic chokehold. And we really need to

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look at these two layers, the social and the

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economic, because they operated together to trap

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people. OK, let's start with the social reality.

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Right. So the Deep South operated under Jim Crow

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laws. And I think sometimes in modern discourse,

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Jim Crow gets sanitized. Yeah, like it just means

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separate water fountains or sitting at the back

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of the bus. Precisely. But the sources we are

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analyzing today detail a rigid, legally enforced

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and violently upheld caste system. It was designed

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to systematically exclude African -Americans

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from any semblance of political or social power.

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Disenfranchisement was was the literal law of

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the land. But I want to dig into the mechanics

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of that, because it went far beyond just not

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being allowed to vote. The sources detail a system

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that effectively tried to recreate the institution

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of slavery by another name. And I'm talking specifically

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about indentured servitude and convict leasing.

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Yes, convict leasing. Break down how convict

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leasing actually worked mechanically because

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reading about it, it's deeply disturbing. It

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is. Convict leasing was a remarkably cynical

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and brutal loophole in the justice system. Following

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the abolition of slavery, southern states passed

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what were known as vagrancy laws. These laws

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essentially made it a criminal offense to be

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unemployed. or even just to be unable to prove

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employment. Wait, so you could be arrested just

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for not having a job? Basically, yes. An African

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-American man could be arrested for simply walking

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down the street if he couldn't produce a document

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proving he worked for a white landowner. It's

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a manufactured crime designed entirely to generate

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arrests. Precisely. And once arrested on these

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trivial or completely fabricated charges, the

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individual wasn't just put in a cell. The state

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would lease these prisoners out to private companies.

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Unbelievable. They provided forced, unpaid, brutal

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labor for plantations, for railroad construction,

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and, incredibly dangerously, for coal mines.

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Private corporations essentially bought a disposable

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labor force from the state justice system. I

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really want to pause here and emphasize this

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for you listening, because we can't just speed

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past this. Holding this entire legal and economic

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system together wasn't just the gavels of local

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judges. It was absolute unchecked terror. Yes.

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The violence. The statistics in our sources are

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chilling. Nearly 3 ,500 African -Americans were

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lynched between 1882 and 1968. It's a horrifying

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number. And this wasn't random discrimination.

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These weren't isolated hate crimes committed

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by lone extremists. This was a systemic reign

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of terror. It was a public. communal tool of

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social control used to enforce the subjugation

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we just mentioned. It was domestic terrorism,

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plainly speaking. It was designed to send a message

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to the entire community. You know, do not organize,

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do not demand higher wages, do not attempt to

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vote and do not challenge the social order or

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this will be your fate. Yeah. When we look at

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the historical data, the threat of this violence

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motivated a massive portion of the early migrants.

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They were searching for literal physical reprieve.

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the basic human desire to wake up in the morning

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and not fear for your life or the lives of your

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children. So you have this suffocating blanket

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of social terror, but then you layer the economics

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on top of that, and it somehow gets even worse.

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It does. Let's talk about the sharecropping system.

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Let's do it. Because again, I think a lot of

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us hear sharecropping in high school history

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class and just think tenant farming. We think

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of it as a standard landlord -tenant relationship.

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But the math was entirely rigged, wasn't it?

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Oh, completely rigged. It was an agricultural

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system designed to ensure the worker could never,

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ever win. Walk us through it. After the Civil

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War, landless farmers, predominantly black, would

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rent plots of land from a white landowner. The

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agreement was that the farmer would pay for the

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rent of the land. the seeds to plant and the

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tools to harvest by giving the landowner a share

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of the crop they produced at the end of the season.

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But wait, mechanically, how do you pay for the

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seeds and tools if you start with zero dollars?

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Right. That's the catch. You buy them on credit

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from the local commissary store. And here is

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where the trap snaps shut. The landowner almost

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always owned that local commissary store. Ah,

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of course. So the landowner sets the exorbitant

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prices for the supplies. The landowner sets the

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astronomically high interest rates on that credit.

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And then, at the end of the harvest, when it's

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time to weigh the cotton and settle the debt,

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the landowner is the one keeping the books and

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determining the market value of the crop. So

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it's essentially a rigged casino where all the

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exits are blocked by armed guards. That's a great

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way to put it. You're forced to play at the tables,

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the house sets the odds, the house keeps the

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score, and surprise surprise, no matter how hard

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you work or how bumper the crop is, the ledger

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at the end of the year always shows that you

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owe the landowner more than you earned. Exactly.

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And because of those vagrancy laws and debt peonage

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laws we discussed earlier, if you owed a debt

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to the landowner, it was illegal for you to leave

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the land. So you're trapped. You were legally

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bound to stay and work another year to try and

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pay it off, which, of course, you never could.

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It was perpetual, inescapable, multi -generational

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debt. So the entire southern agrarian economy

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is operating on this trapped, impoverished labor

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force. But then, as our sources point out, Even

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that deeply flawed rigged system suddenly collapsed.

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Yes, the agricultural foundation of the South

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began to crumble in the early 20th century. There

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was a broader agricultural depression that lowered

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global cotton prices, compounded by devastating

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natural disasters like the Great Mississippi

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Flood of 1927. Right. But the real killing blow

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to the cotton economy wasn't weather or global

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markets. It was an insect. The cotton bull weevil.

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The bull weevil. I am fascinated by this detail.

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Explain the mechanism of the boll weevil. Like,

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how does a tiny beetle dismantle an entire regional

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economy? Well, the boll weevil crossed into Texas

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from Mexico in the late 19th century and slowly,

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methodically, ate its way across the entire deep

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south. It feeds specifically on cotton buds and

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flowers. And cotton was everything, right? Exactly.

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Because the entire southern economy was a monoculture

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almost exclusively reliant on cotton as a cash

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crop, the arrival of the weevil was apocalyptic.

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It destroyed on a biblical scale. Landowners

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went bankrupt and suddenly they couldn't even

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afford to float the credit for their sharecroppers.

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The system just broke. This brings up a massive

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pushback question I have when looking at all

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this data. OK, what of it? When you look at the

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sheer numbers of people packing up and leaving

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in this era, was this migration fundamentally

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more about fleeing the terror of the Jim Crow

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South? Or was it simply about chasing a paycheck

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because the cotton crops had failed and people

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were starving? I mean, are we looking at our

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refugee crisis or an economic migration? What's

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fascinating here is that the sources make a very

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compelling case that you really cannot separate

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the two. Really? They're that tied together?

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The social and economic factors were deeply,

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inextricably intertwined. You couldn't separate

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the economic destitution of the sharecropping

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system from the racial terror of lynching because

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both were tools wielded by the exact same power

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structure to achieve the exact same goal. Total

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subjugation. Yes, total subjugation. You were

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kept poor by the economic system and you were

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terrorized by the social system if you tried

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to challenge your poverty. I see. So when the

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boll weevil destroyed the cotton, the economic

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justification for keeping people trapped on the

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land started to fracture. The terror remained,

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but the meager survival aspect, like the bare

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minimum caloric survival of sharecropping, vanished.

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Yes. The Pulitzer Prize -winning journalist Isabel

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Wilkerson, whose exhaustive work on the subject

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is heavily cited in our sources, notes that despite

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the profound trauma of these conditions, and

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despite the monumental barriers they faced in

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leaving, The migration was ultimately an act

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of individual and collective agency. I love that

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quote. She describes it beautifully as a declaration

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of independence that was written by their actions.

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They didn't just passively get swept away by

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economic currents, they made calculated courageous

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decisions to reclaim their autonomy. which transitions

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us perfectly into the timeline of the Exodus

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itself. We are looking at this migration in two

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distinct waves. Let's examine the first wave,

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which covers the period from roughly 1910 to

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1940. OK, the first wave. We've clearly established

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the push. You know, the southern economy is collapsing

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and the social conditions are a waking nightmare.

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But. Millions of people can't just move unless

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there is a destination. A pulled door to walk

00:12:35.990 --> 00:12:37.889
through, essentially. Right. You don't just wander

00:12:37.889 --> 00:12:39.929
aimlessly. Exactly. You can't just walk hundreds

00:12:39.929 --> 00:12:42.250
of miles north on a whim. There had to be an

00:12:42.250 --> 00:12:44.669
equally powerful magnet pulling them up. And

00:12:44.669 --> 00:12:46.850
according to the historical data, that door was

00:12:46.850 --> 00:12:50.750
blown open by a sudden, massive geopolitical

00:12:50.750 --> 00:12:53.169
shock. It was a shock that completely scrambled

00:12:53.169 --> 00:12:56.049
the global labor market. World War I. Let's break

00:12:56.049 --> 00:12:58.090
down the mechanics of this, because it's a fascinating

00:12:58.090 --> 00:13:00.850
chain reaction. Before the outbreak of World

00:13:00.850 --> 00:13:03.750
War I, northern factories, the engine of American

00:13:03.750 --> 00:13:06.830
industry, relied heavily on a steady, seemingly

00:13:06.830 --> 00:13:09.730
endless stream of European immigrants for cheap

00:13:09.730 --> 00:13:12.750
labor. Yes, the immigration pipeline. The sources

00:13:12.750 --> 00:13:14.850
give us a staggering statistic to illustrate

00:13:14.850 --> 00:13:19.309
this. In the year 1914, around 1 .2 million European

00:13:19.309 --> 00:13:21.629
immigrants arrived in the United States. But

00:13:21.629 --> 00:13:25.029
the very next year, 1915, as the war raged across

00:13:25.029 --> 00:13:27.549
Europe and the Atlantic became a naval battleground

00:13:27.549 --> 00:13:30.259
with U -boats disrupting shipping, that number

00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:33.659
plummeted to just 300 ,000. That is nearly a

00:13:33.659 --> 00:13:36.659
million workers suddenly vanishing from the expected

00:13:36.659 --> 00:13:39.360
labor pool in a single calendar year. Right.

00:13:39.539 --> 00:13:42.100
The pipeline was completely severed and at the

00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:44.620
exact same time Domestic workers in the U .S.

00:13:44.700 --> 00:13:46.759
were being drained from the labor supply because

00:13:46.759 --> 00:13:49.600
of military enlistments. Young men were putting

00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:52.120
down their tools and picking up rifles to go

00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:54.840
fight. So northern industrialists look around

00:13:54.840 --> 00:13:57.279
and their factories. I'm talking the massive

00:13:57.279 --> 00:14:00.279
steel mills of Pennsylvania, the expanding railroad

00:14:00.279 --> 00:14:03.240
networks, the chaotic meatpacking plants of Chicago,

00:14:03.860 --> 00:14:06.279
the burgeoning automobile industry in Detroit.

00:14:06.480 --> 00:14:09.500
They are utterly desperate, desperate for bodies.

00:14:09.559 --> 00:14:12.600
Yeah, they have massive lucrative wartime production.

00:14:12.519 --> 00:14:15.679
quotas to meet for the government and literally

00:14:15.679 --> 00:14:18.320
nobody to work the assembly lines. This created

00:14:18.320 --> 00:14:21.120
an unprecedented wartime opportunity in the north.

00:14:21.639 --> 00:14:23.700
Suddenly the northern industrialists had to look

00:14:23.700 --> 00:14:26.740
domestically for a massive new labor supply and

00:14:26.740 --> 00:14:29.279
they turned their eyes toward the untapped heavily

00:14:29.279 --> 00:14:31.860
subjugated labor force languishing in the American

00:14:31.860 --> 00:14:33.740
south. And they didn't just put ads in the paper

00:14:33.740 --> 00:14:35.299
and hope people showed up right. The sources

00:14:35.299 --> 00:14:38.559
detail how they actively covertly went hunting

00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:42.220
for workers. They did. Northern businessmen actually

00:14:42.220 --> 00:14:45.139
sent labor agents down south. Just showing up

00:14:45.139 --> 00:14:48.120
to recruit. Yes. And they had to be covert about

00:14:48.120 --> 00:14:50.899
it because, as we'll discuss later, southern

00:14:50.899 --> 00:14:53.360
authorities did not take kindly to this. But

00:14:53.360 --> 00:14:55.759
the incentives these northern agents were offering

00:14:55.759 --> 00:14:58.960
were completely wild compared to the sharecropping

00:14:58.960 --> 00:15:02.039
reality. The contrast was night and day. These

00:15:02.039 --> 00:15:05.559
labor agents offered free transportation, literally

00:15:05.559 --> 00:15:07.929
handing out train tickets. Wow. They offered

00:15:07.929 --> 00:15:10.809
low -cost housing upon arrival. And the wages,

00:15:11.789 --> 00:15:14.169
the wages could be double, triple, or even more

00:15:14.169 --> 00:15:16.149
than what a worker could theoretically make in

00:15:16.149 --> 00:15:18.750
the South. And crucially, it was paid in actual

00:15:18.750 --> 00:15:22.029
cash, not in rigged commissary credit. To put

00:15:22.029 --> 00:15:24.649
the scale of this demographic shift into perspective,

00:15:25.110 --> 00:15:27.090
James Gregory's calculations in his book, The

00:15:27.090 --> 00:15:28.950
Southern Diaspora, which is referenced in our

00:15:28.950 --> 00:15:31.909
stack, show that the pace accelerated dramatically

00:15:31.909 --> 00:15:34.029
with the outbreak of the war. It really spiked.

00:15:34.279 --> 00:15:38.440
By 1930, there were 1 .3 million former Southerners

00:15:38.440 --> 00:15:41.539
living in other regions. To contextualize that,

00:15:41.759 --> 00:15:45.759
in the year 1900, only about 740 ,000 African

00:15:45.759 --> 00:15:48.360
Americans lived outside the South in total. That

00:15:48.360 --> 00:15:50.659
was just 8 % of the nation's Black population.

00:15:51.200 --> 00:15:53.320
Within a few decades, they more than doubled

00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:55.600
the entire population living outside the South.

00:15:55.789 --> 00:15:58.309
It's a profound historical irony. If you think

00:15:58.309 --> 00:16:00.169
about it, here's where it gets really interesting.

00:16:00.309 --> 00:16:02.409
Expand on that. What's the irony? The irony is

00:16:02.409 --> 00:16:05.110
that the unprecedented carnage of global warfare

00:16:05.110 --> 00:16:07.669
happening thousands of miles away across the

00:16:07.669 --> 00:16:10.750
Atlantic Ocean was the exact catalyst required

00:16:10.750 --> 00:16:13.509
to break the domestic labor gridlock here in

00:16:13.509 --> 00:16:15.990
America. Oh, yeah. The sudden halt of European

00:16:15.990 --> 00:16:18.110
immigrant labor forced northern industrialists

00:16:18.110 --> 00:16:20.169
who previously had little interest in black southern

00:16:20.169 --> 00:16:22.870
labor to actively aggressively court the very

00:16:22.870 --> 00:16:24.769
people that southern elites were systematically

00:16:24.769 --> 00:16:28.120
subject The war created a sudden desperate demand

00:16:28.120 --> 00:16:30.559
for their existence as free laborers. And I think

00:16:30.559 --> 00:16:32.600
it's important to note that these industrial

00:16:32.600 --> 00:16:35.039
jobs waiting for them in the north were not a

00:16:35.039 --> 00:16:38.559
walk in the park. working in a 1920s Pennsylvania

00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.799
steel mill next to a blast furnace, or standing

00:16:41.799 --> 00:16:44.720
on the disassembly line of a Chicago meatpacking

00:16:44.720 --> 00:16:47.580
plant that was grueling, exhausting, and highly

00:16:47.580 --> 00:16:50.519
dangerous work. Oh, absolutely. The conditions

00:16:50.519 --> 00:16:53.759
were brutal by modern standards. But the sheer

00:16:53.759 --> 00:16:56.639
existence of a wage, a physical cash wage that

00:16:56.639 --> 00:16:58.679
you earned with your sweat and kept in your pocket,

00:16:59.179 --> 00:17:01.379
completely outside of the rigged ledger of a

00:17:01.379 --> 00:17:03.879
sharecropping landlord, was revolutionary for

00:17:03.879 --> 00:17:06.009
these migrants. It's real freedom. represented

00:17:06.009 --> 00:17:09.369
economic agency. And the shift was massive. Between

00:17:09.369 --> 00:17:12.490
1910 and 1920, the number of black workers employed

00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:15.190
in industry nearly doubled, growing from roughly

00:17:15.190 --> 00:17:17.930
500 ,000 to over 900 ,000. So that's the first

00:17:17.930 --> 00:17:20.329
wave. The boll weevil pushes and the World War

00:17:20.329 --> 00:17:24.130
I industrial boom pulls, but then history rarely

00:17:24.130 --> 00:17:26.470
moves in a straight line. No, it doesn't. The

00:17:26.470 --> 00:17:29.890
momentum hits a massive wall in the 1930s. The

00:17:29.890 --> 00:17:32.430
Great Depression essentially froze this first

00:17:32.430 --> 00:17:35.130
wave in its tracks. The northern jobs dried up,

00:17:35.490 --> 00:17:37.630
factories closed down, the stock market crashed,

00:17:37.950 --> 00:17:41.869
and the economic pull simply vanished. Nobody

00:17:41.869 --> 00:17:44.190
is handing out free train tickets when unemployment

00:17:44.190 --> 00:17:47.369
is at 25 percent. Right. The migration slowed

00:17:47.369 --> 00:17:50.609
to a trickle during the 1930s. But it was only

00:17:50.609 --> 00:17:53.099
a temporary pause. because as we move into the

00:17:53.099 --> 00:17:55.619
1940s, the second wave of the Great Migration

00:17:55.619 --> 00:17:58.079
begins. The second wave. And what's fascinating

00:17:58.079 --> 00:18:00.859
here is that while the overarching theme of moving

00:18:00.859 --> 00:18:03.400
north and west remains the same, this second

00:18:03.400 --> 00:18:06.400
wave is driven by an entirely different set of

00:18:06.400 --> 00:18:08.619
economic and technological engines. Let's break

00:18:08.619 --> 00:18:10.839
down that shift, because if the first wave was

00:18:10.839 --> 00:18:13.539
about World War I and the bull weevil, the second

00:18:13.539 --> 00:18:16.039
wave running from the mid 1940s all the way to

00:18:16.039 --> 00:18:19.180
1970 was defined by World War II and the invention

00:18:19.180 --> 00:18:21.119
of a tractor. Exactly. Let's look at the World

00:18:21.119 --> 00:18:23.009
War II. two aspects first, because it mirrors

00:18:23.009 --> 00:18:24.990
the first ways but on a much larger scale. Just

00:18:24.990 --> 00:18:28.569
like the first war, WWII created a massive urgent

00:18:28.569 --> 00:18:30.650
defense buildup, which is what finally pulled

00:18:30.650 --> 00:18:32.869
the country entirely out of the depression. Our

00:18:32.869 --> 00:18:35.849
sources highlight Louisville, Kentucky as a prime

00:18:35.849 --> 00:18:39.890
specific example of this war boom economy. Louisville's

00:18:39.890 --> 00:18:42.349
defense industry absolutely exploded overnight.

00:18:42.630 --> 00:18:44.049
What were they actually building in Louisville?

00:18:44.390 --> 00:18:46.460
Everything the military needed. They built plants

00:18:46.460 --> 00:18:48.940
producing synthetic rubber, smokeless powders

00:18:48.940 --> 00:18:51.799
from munitions, artillery shells. The conversion

00:18:51.799 --> 00:18:54.380
of civilian industry to military production was

00:18:54.380 --> 00:18:57.819
total and sweeping. Right. The whole economy

00:18:57.819 --> 00:19:00.359
pivoted. The Ford Motor Company converted its

00:19:00.359 --> 00:19:03.160
massive assembly plant there to stop making civilian

00:19:03.160 --> 00:19:05.440
cars and start producing military jeeps. I read

00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:07.880
this detail in the sources and it blew my mind.

00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:10.440
Even the company Hilleric and Bradsby, which

00:19:10.440 --> 00:19:12.720
most people know as the manufacturers of the

00:19:12.720 --> 00:19:17.039
famous Louisville slugger baseball bats, completely

00:19:17.039 --> 00:19:19.279
switched their production lines. That's an incredible

00:19:19.279 --> 00:19:21.299
detail. They stopped turning baseball bats on

00:19:21.299 --> 00:19:24.059
their lathes and started making wooden gun stocks

00:19:24.059 --> 00:19:26.700
from military rifles. It perfectly illustrates

00:19:26.700 --> 00:19:29.559
the total mobilization of the economy from hitting

00:19:29.559 --> 00:19:32.660
home runs to equipping soldiers. And this defense

00:19:32.660 --> 00:19:35.279
industry in Louisville alone reached a peak employment

00:19:35.279 --> 00:19:38.750
of over 80 ,000 workers. Now, it is crucial to

00:19:38.750 --> 00:19:41.849
note that initially these lucrative defense jobs

00:19:41.849 --> 00:19:45.789
were not open to African Americans due to widespread

00:19:45.789 --> 00:19:48.569
systemic discrimination by the factory owners

00:19:48.569 --> 00:19:51.529
and white labor unions. So how did they break

00:19:51.529 --> 00:19:53.670
through that barrier? Because the sources say

00:19:53.670 --> 00:19:56.130
this became a massive pull factor for the second

00:19:56.130 --> 00:19:59.089
wave. They broke through through intense political

00:19:59.089 --> 00:20:01.289
pressure. Civil rights leaders, most notably

00:20:01.289 --> 00:20:03.950
a Philip Randolph, threatened a massive march

00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:06.769
on Washington to protest the exclusion of black

00:20:06.769 --> 00:20:09.269
workers from their offense. Boom. OK, so a direct

00:20:09.269 --> 00:20:11.799
threat to the government. Exactly. Under this

00:20:11.799 --> 00:20:14.119
intense pressure and facing a desperate need

00:20:14.119 --> 00:20:17.000
for maximum labor output to win the war, President

00:20:17.000 --> 00:20:19.140
Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order

00:20:19.140 --> 00:20:22.680
8802. This created the Fair Employment Practices

00:20:22.680 --> 00:20:24.740
Committee. And what did that do exactly? It officially

00:20:24.740 --> 00:20:26.940
banned discriminatory employment practices by

00:20:26.940 --> 00:20:29.079
federal agencies and all unions and companies

00:20:29.079 --> 00:20:32.170
engaged in war -related work. It forced these

00:20:32.170 --> 00:20:34.490
massive industries to finally open their doors.

00:20:34.789 --> 00:20:37.210
So you have this massive federally mandated opening

00:20:37.210 --> 00:20:39.410
of high paying industrial jobs in the north and

00:20:39.410 --> 00:20:43.210
west. But simultaneously there was an irreversible

00:20:43.210 --> 00:20:45.950
technological push happening down south. The

00:20:45.950 --> 00:20:47.930
first wave was pushed by an insect destroying

00:20:47.930 --> 00:20:50.670
the crop. The second wave was pushed by a machine

00:20:50.670 --> 00:20:53.829
harvesting the crop perfectly. Right. We're talking

00:20:53.829 --> 00:20:56.650
about the widespread mechanization of agriculture

00:20:56.650 --> 00:21:00.930
in the 1930s and 1940s. The invention and adoption

00:21:00.930 --> 00:21:03.829
of the mechanical cotton picker, most notably

00:21:03.829 --> 00:21:06.150
the one developed by the Rust Brothers, along

00:21:06.150 --> 00:21:09.130
with the widespread use of tractors, fundamentally

00:21:09.130 --> 00:21:11.349
and permanently altered the southern landscape.

00:21:11.559 --> 00:21:14.319
I'm trying to visualize the sheer socioeconomic

00:21:14.319 --> 00:21:16.980
impact of this. Sharecropping had survived everything

00:21:16.980 --> 00:21:19.680
up to this point, right? Depressions, the bull

00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:22.980
weevil, new laws, floods. Why was a tractor the

00:21:22.980 --> 00:21:25.259
thing that finally killed it? Because it changed

00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:27.180
the fundamental math of the agrarian economy.

00:21:27.680 --> 00:21:29.400
A mechanical cotton picker could do the work

00:21:29.400 --> 00:21:31.740
of 50 manual laborers in a fraction of the time

00:21:31.740 --> 00:21:33.960
without needing to rest and without needing to

00:21:33.960 --> 00:21:36.839
be housed or fed via a commissary store. The

00:21:36.839 --> 00:21:39.920
machine just replaced the man. It did. Mechanization

00:21:39.920 --> 00:21:42.519
brought the institution of sharecropping, which

00:21:42.519 --> 00:21:44.579
had existed in various forms since the Civil

00:21:44.579 --> 00:21:48.119
War, to a definitive, unceremonious end. I mean,

00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:50.539
put yourself in those shoes for a second. Imagine

00:21:50.539 --> 00:21:52.740
being a sharecropper in the 1940s. You've lived

00:21:52.740 --> 00:21:54.240
your whole life and your parents lived their

00:21:54.240 --> 00:21:56.759
whole lives, working this specific plot of dirt.

00:21:57.119 --> 00:21:59.740
You are trapped in debt. Suddenly, a landowner

00:21:59.740 --> 00:22:02.160
buys a tractor. It rolls up, does the harvest

00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:04.420
in an afternoon, and your job is just... Done.

00:22:04.660 --> 00:22:08.099
Gone. Manual agricultural labor isn't just underpaying

00:22:08.099 --> 00:22:10.680
anymore. It is entirely obsolete. Where do you

00:22:10.680 --> 00:22:14.559
go when the only economy, the only land, suddenly

00:22:14.559 --> 00:22:16.859
explicitly tells you it no longer requires your

00:22:16.859 --> 00:22:19.099
physical existence? You have absolutely no choice

00:22:19.099 --> 00:22:21.660
but to go where the jobs are. And the scale of

00:22:21.660 --> 00:22:23.900
this second wave completely dwarfs the first.

00:22:24.920 --> 00:22:27.220
According to our demographic data, approximately

00:22:27.220 --> 00:22:30.200
1 .4 million Black Southerners moved north or

00:22:30.200 --> 00:22:33.599
west in the 1940s alone. 1 .4 million in just

00:22:33.599 --> 00:22:36.000
one decade. That was followed by another 1 .1

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:38.519
million in the 1950s and then a staggering 2

00:22:38.519 --> 00:22:41.880
.4 million people in the 1960s and early 1970s.

00:22:41.980 --> 00:22:43.960
So wait, let me make sure I'm tracking the overarching...

00:22:44.240 --> 00:22:46.599
Timeline and demographics here. Let's do an episode

00:22:46.599 --> 00:22:49.519
focus check. Sure. If my grandfather moved during

00:22:49.519 --> 00:22:52.779
the first wave, say around 1920, he was likely

00:22:52.779 --> 00:22:55.500
a rural agricultural worker pushed by the ball

00:22:55.500 --> 00:22:58.380
weevil and pulled by WWI steel mill shortages

00:22:58.380 --> 00:23:00.700
heading to places like Chicago or Pittsburgh.

00:23:01.339 --> 00:23:03.759
But if my father moved during the second wave

00:23:03.759 --> 00:23:06.740
in the 1950s, it's a completely different dynamic.

00:23:06.819 --> 00:23:08.960
Very different. The second wave migrant is being

00:23:08.960 --> 00:23:11.559
pushed out permanently by tractors making manual

00:23:11.559 --> 00:23:15.730
farming obsolete and pulled by massive post -WWII

00:23:15.730 --> 00:23:18.589
economic prosperity. Right. It's permanent obsolescence

00:23:18.589 --> 00:23:21.710
versus a temporary crop failure. Exactly. And

00:23:21.710 --> 00:23:24.190
crucially, this second wave included a much higher

00:23:24.190 --> 00:23:27.009
percentage of townspeople with existing urban

00:23:27.009 --> 00:23:29.690
skills mechanics, domestic workers, tradespeople,

00:23:29.910 --> 00:23:31.769
not just rural farmers. And the destinations

00:23:31.769 --> 00:23:34.769
expanded too, right? Yes. The first wave was

00:23:34.769 --> 00:23:36.789
primarily focused on the Northeast and the Midwest.

00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:39.759
The second wave saw massive migration routes

00:23:39.759 --> 00:23:42.000
open up to Western cities. People were heading

00:23:42.000 --> 00:23:44.740
to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle,

00:23:44.920 --> 00:23:46.740
and Portland to work in the booming aerospace

00:23:46.740 --> 00:23:48.700
and shipbuilding industries out there. Which

00:23:48.700 --> 00:23:51.980
opens up a huge logistical mystery for me. We

00:23:51.980 --> 00:23:54.779
just nonchalantly threw around numbers like 1

00:23:54.779 --> 00:23:58.440
.4 million and 2 .4 million people moving. Millions

00:23:58.440 --> 00:24:00.839
of people don't... just magically teleport across

00:24:00.839 --> 00:24:02.799
the country. And remember, we are talking about

00:24:02.799 --> 00:24:06.140
an era long before the internet, before smartphones,

00:24:06.299 --> 00:24:09.180
before GPS or social media networks. Oh, absolutely.

00:24:09.660 --> 00:24:11.839
The logistics are mind boggling. Right. I want

00:24:11.839 --> 00:24:14.380
to know the mechanics. How did these families

00:24:14.380 --> 00:24:17.160
know exactly where to go, how to get there, and

00:24:17.160 --> 00:24:19.319
how did they coordinate it all while living under

00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:22.400
a regime of terror that actively wanted to prevent

00:24:22.400 --> 00:24:25.460
them from organizing? This brings us to the fascinating

00:24:25.460 --> 00:24:28.660
sociology of the migration. The movement was

00:24:28.660 --> 00:24:31.019
heavily dictated by something sociologists refer

00:24:31.019 --> 00:24:34.099
to as chain migration. Chain migration? The patterns

00:24:34.099 --> 00:24:36.640
of where people ended up weren't random at all.

00:24:37.140 --> 00:24:40.000
They were deeply tied to geography, specifically

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:42.640
longitudinal lines and existing transportation

00:24:42.640 --> 00:24:45.099
networks, particularly the major railroad lines.

00:24:45.240 --> 00:24:47.839
So it's not like a family in rural Georgia threw

00:24:47.839 --> 00:24:50.000
a dart at a map of the United States and said,

00:24:50.119 --> 00:24:52.359
I think we'll try our luck in Seattle. Not at

00:24:52.359 --> 00:24:54.940
all. The routes were highly predictable based

00:24:54.940 --> 00:24:57.799
on train infrastructure. For instance, almost

00:24:57.799 --> 00:25:00.160
half of the migrants leaving Mississippi during

00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:02.720
the first Great Migration ended up in Chicago.

00:25:02.819 --> 00:25:05.599
Why Chicago? Because they would simply board

00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:08.200
the Illinois Central Railroad, which ran a straight

00:25:08.200 --> 00:25:10.259
shot right at the middle of the country from

00:25:10.259 --> 00:25:12.819
New Orleans through Mississippi directly into

00:25:12.819 --> 00:25:16.019
Chicago. That makes perfect sense. Meanwhile,

00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:18.079
people migrating from East Coast states like

00:25:18.079 --> 00:25:21.259
Virginia or the Carolinas tended to follow the

00:25:21.259 --> 00:25:24.180
Eastern Seaboard train lines straight up to Philadelphia,

00:25:24.259 --> 00:25:27.339
New York, or Boston. And people from Texas and

00:25:27.339 --> 00:25:30.259
Louisiana were much more likely to utilize the

00:25:30.259 --> 00:25:33.019
Southern Pacific rail lines heading west to Los

00:25:33.019 --> 00:25:35.420
Angeles or Oakland. They followed the iron paths

00:25:35.420 --> 00:25:37.460
of the people who went before them. The sources

00:25:37.460 --> 00:25:40.519
note a fascinating 2021 economic study on these

00:25:40.519 --> 00:25:43.599
migration networks. Oh, the 1 .9 multiplier study.

00:25:43.819 --> 00:25:46.829
Yes. It found that when one randomly chosen African

00:25:46.829 --> 00:25:49.450
-American moved from a southern birth town to

00:25:49.450 --> 00:25:52.049
a specific northern destination county, an average

00:25:52.049 --> 00:25:55.089
of 1 .9 additional black migrants made the exact

00:25:55.089 --> 00:25:58.369
same move to the exact same county. That 1 .9

00:25:58.369 --> 00:26:01.309
figure is the literal numerical proof of the

00:26:01.309 --> 00:26:04.309
network effect in action. You don't go to a random

00:26:04.309 --> 00:26:06.950
city. You go where your uncle went five years

00:26:06.950 --> 00:26:09.230
ago or where your former neighbor from down the

00:26:09.230 --> 00:26:11.809
road went. Because it's safer. Exactly. Because

00:26:11.809 --> 00:26:14.250
when you arrive in a strange, overwhelming industrial

00:26:14.250 --> 00:26:16.809
city, they can help you find a room to rent in

00:26:16.809 --> 00:26:18.970
their boarding house. Or they can put in a good

00:26:18.970 --> 00:26:21.210
word for you with the foreman at the meatpacking

00:26:21.210 --> 00:26:24.609
plant to get you a job. It lowers the extreme

00:26:24.609 --> 00:26:27.529
risk of the journey. But the network had to be

00:26:27.529 --> 00:26:29.750
much larger than just word of mouth, right? Word

00:26:29.750 --> 00:26:32.829
of mouth doesn't move six million people. The

00:26:32.829 --> 00:26:35.589
ultimate information hub of the great migration,

00:26:36.069 --> 00:26:38.910
the real logistical engine, was a newspaper.

00:26:39.279 --> 00:26:42.660
The Chicago Defender. The historical importance

00:26:42.660 --> 00:26:45.119
of the Chicago Defender cannot be overstated.

00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:47.740
It was a primarily black owned and operated newspaper

00:26:47.740 --> 00:26:50.779
based in Chicago, but its reach was national.

00:26:51.279 --> 00:26:53.640
It served as a massive intentional catalyst for

00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:56.059
the migration. It wasn't just a passive observer.

00:26:56.339 --> 00:26:58.720
No, not at all. It didn't just passively report

00:26:58.720 --> 00:27:01.140
the news of the day. It actively aggressively

00:27:01.140 --> 00:27:03.700
campaigned for black southerners to pack up and

00:27:03.700 --> 00:27:06.279
leave the South. They explicitly called the North

00:27:06.279 --> 00:27:09.210
the promised land. And they weren't subtle about

00:27:09.210 --> 00:27:11.910
their editorial stance. They published blazing

00:27:11.910 --> 00:27:15.190
headlines exposing Southern lynchings alongside

00:27:15.190 --> 00:27:18.589
powerful editorial cartoons depicting the horrors

00:27:18.589 --> 00:27:21.630
of Southern subjugation contrasted with the opportunity

00:27:21.630 --> 00:27:24.369
and freedom of the North. It was incredibly bold.

00:27:24.569 --> 00:27:27.910
But beyond the ideology, they provided the actual

00:27:27.910 --> 00:27:31.250
literal logistical blueprint. Yes, the practical

00:27:31.250 --> 00:27:33.170
information was what made it so revolutionary.

00:27:33.369 --> 00:27:36.170
The Defender published job listings directly

00:27:36.170 --> 00:27:38.569
from Northern factories. They published train

00:27:38.569 --> 00:27:41.130
schedules and ticket prices. They printed letters

00:27:41.130 --> 00:27:42.990
from successful migrants who had already made

00:27:42.990 --> 00:27:45.529
the journey detailing their new wages and living

00:27:45.529 --> 00:27:48.390
conditions. They gave people the actionable intelligence

00:27:48.390 --> 00:27:51.640
they needed to plan an escape. They did. In fact,

00:27:51.819 --> 00:27:54.259
the Defender famously designated a specific date,

00:27:54.579 --> 00:27:58.180
May 15, 1917, as the Great Northern Drive. The

00:27:58.180 --> 00:28:00.980
Great Northern Drive. Yes. Their goal was to

00:28:00.980 --> 00:28:03.740
establish a coordinated movement where over 100

00:28:03.740 --> 00:28:06.180
,000 African Americans would migrate to Chicago

00:28:06.180 --> 00:28:08.720
alone during the height of the WWI labor shortage.

00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:11.640
But it raises another mechanical question. If

00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:14.119
this newspaper is publishing train schedules

00:28:14.119 --> 00:28:16.660
and telling people to flee the south, and the

00:28:16.660 --> 00:28:18.740
southern landowners are desperate to keep their

00:28:18.740 --> 00:28:21.559
sharecroppers trapped, how on earth is a Chicago

00:28:21.559 --> 00:28:23.740
newspaper reaching a rural farm in Mississippi?

00:28:24.039 --> 00:28:25.640
I mean, they couldn't just drop it in the mail.

00:28:25.900 --> 00:28:28.339
No, it was essentially a massive smuggling operation.

00:28:29.039 --> 00:28:30.660
Southern authorities eventually realized what

00:28:30.660 --> 00:28:32.519
the defender was doing and tried to completely

00:28:32.519 --> 00:28:35.400
ban its distribution. They confiscated it from

00:28:35.400 --> 00:28:37.480
the mail and threatened anyone caught reading

00:28:37.480 --> 00:28:40.380
it. How did it get through? So the distribution

00:28:40.380 --> 00:28:43.640
relied heavily on black Pullman railcar porters.

00:28:44.619 --> 00:28:46.579
These were the men who worked the sleeper cars

00:28:46.579 --> 00:28:48.539
on the trains traveling between the north and

00:28:48.539 --> 00:28:51.990
south. They would secretly bundle stacks of the

00:28:51.990 --> 00:28:54.890
Defender in Chicago, hide them in the train ceilings

00:28:54.890 --> 00:28:58.069
or in the dirty laundry bags. And as the trains

00:28:58.069 --> 00:29:00.069
rolled through the south, they would covertly

00:29:00.069 --> 00:29:02.789
toss bundles off at specific junctions or hand

00:29:02.789 --> 00:29:05.130
them off to local barbers and preachers who would

00:29:05.130 --> 00:29:07.049
distribute them underground. It's incredible.

00:29:07.150 --> 00:29:10.329
It's like an early analog underground version

00:29:10.329 --> 00:29:13.230
of crowdsourcing or, you know, a primitive social

00:29:13.230 --> 00:29:16.269
network. Instead of a Facebook group or a subreddit

00:29:16.269 --> 00:29:19.430
organizing a movement, you had the Chicago Defender

00:29:19.430 --> 00:29:21.690
passed hand to hand in secret and you had what

00:29:21.690 --> 00:29:24.990
the sources call migration clubs. Yes, historian

00:29:24.990 --> 00:29:27.569
Joe Trotter explains how African -Americans formed

00:29:27.569 --> 00:29:30.990
these clubs as localized logistical nodes in

00:29:30.990 --> 00:29:33.130
the safety of barbershops, pool rooms, churches

00:29:33.130 --> 00:29:35.869
and lodge halls. People would gather this smuggled

00:29:35.869 --> 00:29:38.450
information. They debated the pros and cons of

00:29:38.450 --> 00:29:41.369
moving. Like a strategy meeting. Exactly. And

00:29:41.369 --> 00:29:43.529
crucially, they pooled their meager financial

00:29:43.529 --> 00:29:46.349
resources together to buy train tickets at reduced

00:29:46.349 --> 00:29:48.789
group rates or to fund the journey of one member

00:29:48.789 --> 00:29:50.710
who would then send money back for the rest.

00:29:51.029 --> 00:29:52.690
I just want to sit with this for a second because

00:29:52.690 --> 00:29:55.230
this is astounding. This wasn't a chaotic, panicked

00:29:55.230 --> 00:29:57.750
scatter of refugees fleeing into the night. It

00:29:57.750 --> 00:30:01.269
was a highly organized, community -driven, logistical

00:30:01.269 --> 00:30:04.390
masterclass. It really was. They funded and executed

00:30:04.390 --> 00:30:07.490
a mass exodus of millions of people without any

00:30:07.490 --> 00:30:10.690
modern technology, relying on smuggled newspapers

00:30:10.690 --> 00:30:13.569
and pooled pennies, all while actively being

00:30:13.569 --> 00:30:15.930
surveilled and threatened by heavily armed local

00:30:15.930 --> 00:30:18.150
authorities. If we connect this to the bigger

00:30:18.150 --> 00:30:21.420
picture... It is a testament to extraordinary

00:30:21.420 --> 00:30:24.559
organizational capability under duress, which

00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:27.319
naturally brings us to the reaction to this mass

00:30:27.319 --> 00:30:30.160
movement. Right. Because as Newton's third law

00:30:30.160 --> 00:30:32.940
states, every action has an equal and opposite

00:30:32.940 --> 00:30:35.660
reaction. When you certainly shift millions of

00:30:35.660 --> 00:30:37.759
people and thousands of tons of economic labor

00:30:37.759 --> 00:30:40.400
out of one region and into another, the people

00:30:40.400 --> 00:30:42.500
left behind and the people in the new destination

00:30:42.500 --> 00:30:44.980
are going to react. And according to our sources,

00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:47.759
they reacted dramatically and often violently.

00:30:48.000 --> 00:30:50.980
Let's look at the southern panic first. As the

00:30:50.980 --> 00:30:53.839
migration accelerated, a glaring paradox in the

00:30:53.839 --> 00:30:56.079
southern economy was suddenly exposed for everyone

00:30:56.079 --> 00:30:58.599
to see. The paradox is that southern white elites

00:30:58.599 --> 00:31:01.660
treated African Americans with extreme violent

00:31:01.660 --> 00:31:04.900
hostility, subjecting them to intense legal discrimination,

00:31:05.339 --> 00:31:08.279
disenfranchisement, and terror. They explicitly

00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:10.859
campaigned on platforms of white supremacy. Yet

00:31:10.859 --> 00:31:14.690
their entire agrarian economy their immense personal

00:31:14.690 --> 00:31:17.769
wealth was utterly completely dependent on the

00:31:17.769 --> 00:31:20.589
presence of those exact same African Americans

00:31:20.589 --> 00:31:24.130
as an abundant captive supply of cheap labor.

00:31:24.470 --> 00:31:26.190
They hated them socially, but they desperately

00:31:26.190 --> 00:31:28.210
needed them economically to pick the cotton.

00:31:29.250 --> 00:31:31.390
A South Carolina politician actually summed this

00:31:31.390 --> 00:31:33.829
paradox up perfectly in a quote from our sources.

00:31:34.390 --> 00:31:37.049
He said, politically speaking, there are far

00:31:37.049 --> 00:31:39.650
too many Negroes, but from an industrial standpoint,

00:31:39.990 --> 00:31:43.019
there is room for many more. Wow. So initially,

00:31:43.259 --> 00:31:46.059
in the very early 1910s, some of the white elite

00:31:46.059 --> 00:31:48.359
actually thought the initial trickle of migration

00:31:48.359 --> 00:31:50.480
was a good thing. They thought it was just siphoning

00:31:50.480 --> 00:31:52.559
off surplus unemployed labor. Oh, they thought

00:31:52.559 --> 00:31:54.880
it was helpful. But as the sheer volume of the

00:31:54.880 --> 00:31:57.420
migration became clear, as the trains kept rolling

00:31:57.420 --> 00:32:00.240
out full of workers and coming back empty, the

00:32:00.240 --> 00:32:03.319
South began to severely panic. The labor force

00:32:03.319 --> 00:32:05.279
they relied on to maintain their wealth was quite

00:32:05.279 --> 00:32:07.720
literally vanishing into thin air. And they tried

00:32:07.720 --> 00:32:10.420
to stop it. And as we've established, they didn't

00:32:10.420 --> 00:32:12.740
just ask nicely. They did try to raise wages

00:32:12.740 --> 00:32:14.640
slightly to compete with the northern factories,

00:32:14.839 --> 00:32:17.759
but when that failed, they used the law and outright

00:32:17.759 --> 00:32:20.339
violence to trap people. They leveraged every

00:32:20.339 --> 00:32:23.259
tool of the state. Local governments across the

00:32:23.259 --> 00:32:26.140
South passed harsh new work -or -fight laws.

00:32:26.339 --> 00:32:29.319
More laws just to trap them. Yes. These demanded

00:32:29.319 --> 00:32:31.960
that all males either be employed locally by

00:32:31.960 --> 00:32:34.640
a white landowner or be conscripted into the

00:32:34.640 --> 00:32:38.299
military or forced labor. They passed ordinances

00:32:38.299 --> 00:32:40.619
requiring labor agents from the North to pay

00:32:40.619 --> 00:32:43.440
exorbitant licensing fees, sometimes tens of

00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:45.539
thousands of dollars, just to operate in a southern

00:32:45.539 --> 00:32:48.460
town. Effectively outlawing recruitment. Exactly.

00:32:48.539 --> 00:32:50.619
And when the legislation failed to stop the tide,

00:32:51.119 --> 00:32:54.200
they resorted to physical intimidation. The sources

00:32:54.200 --> 00:32:56.940
detail how local police and deputized mobs would

00:32:56.940 --> 00:32:59.259
literally show up at the train stations. Yes,

00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:02.029
the platform violence. They would beat people

00:33:02.029 --> 00:33:04.470
waiting on the platforms, physically tear up

00:33:04.470 --> 00:33:06.529
the train tickets they had saved for months to

00:33:06.529 --> 00:33:09.250
buy, and terrorize them into returning to the

00:33:09.250 --> 00:33:12.769
farms. The situation became so egregious that

00:33:12.769 --> 00:33:15.650
the U .S. Secretary of Labor at the time, William

00:33:15.650 --> 00:33:18.849
B. Wilson, actually had to issue official statements

00:33:18.849 --> 00:33:21.250
condemning these tactics for interfering with

00:33:21.250 --> 00:33:23.490
the natural constitutional right of American

00:33:23.490 --> 00:33:27.029
workers to move freely between states. But despite

00:33:27.029 --> 00:33:29.470
the beatings and the torn tickets, the migrants

00:33:29.470 --> 00:33:32.180
kept leaving. They found other stations. They

00:33:32.180 --> 00:33:34.259
walked miles to catch trains in the next county.

00:33:34.559 --> 00:33:36.819
They hid in the baggage cars. They were determined.

00:33:36.960 --> 00:33:38.920
But the tragic reality is that when they finally

00:33:38.920 --> 00:33:41.559
arrived in the North, seeking the promised land

00:33:41.559 --> 00:33:44.200
they had read about in the Defender, the reception

00:33:44.200 --> 00:33:46.900
they received from the locals was deeply hostile

00:33:46.900 --> 00:33:49.789
as well. Let's unpack the northern hostility.

00:33:50.170 --> 00:33:51.829
We mentioned earlier that northern factories

00:33:51.829 --> 00:33:54.029
were desperate because European immigration had

00:33:54.029 --> 00:33:56.009
plummeted. Well, there were already established

00:33:56.009 --> 00:33:58.470
working class European immigrants living in these

00:33:58.470 --> 00:34:00.970
cities, like the Irish and the Italians, who

00:34:00.970 --> 00:34:02.910
had recently fought bitter battles to secure

00:34:02.910 --> 00:34:04.970
their own positions and wages in these northern

00:34:04.970 --> 00:34:08.309
factories. And suddenly these established ethnic

00:34:08.309 --> 00:34:11.389
working class neighborhoods felt deeply economically

00:34:11.389 --> 00:34:14.510
threatened by this massive sudden influx of new

00:34:14.510 --> 00:34:16.809
labor competition from the South. They viewed

00:34:16.809 --> 00:34:18.989
the black migrants as a threat to their wages,

00:34:19.510 --> 00:34:21.469
especially since industrialists would sometimes

00:34:21.469 --> 00:34:23.670
cynically use the migrants as strikebreakers.

00:34:23.929 --> 00:34:26.010
The labor unions, which were supposed to protect

00:34:26.010 --> 00:34:28.889
workers, turned against them. The American Federation

00:34:28.889 --> 00:34:31.429
of Labor, the AFL, which was the dominant union

00:34:31.429 --> 00:34:34.550
force, actually indicated for strict segregation

00:34:34.550 --> 00:34:37.150
between European Americans and African Americans

00:34:37.150 --> 00:34:39.429
in the workplace. That's right. White workers

00:34:39.429 --> 00:34:42.309
routinely staged nonviolent walkouts, shutting

00:34:42.309 --> 00:34:44.730
down production lines to protest the integration

00:34:44.730 --> 00:34:47.289
of the factories. And tragically, the tension

00:34:47.289 --> 00:34:50.449
rapidly escalated from nonviolent walkouts to

00:34:50.449 --> 00:34:53.489
horrific, lethal violence. The competition for

00:34:53.489 --> 00:34:56.449
jobs, combined with intense competition for limited

00:34:56.449 --> 00:34:59.050
housing in these rapidly overcrowding cities,

00:34:59.650 --> 00:35:03.329
created a powder keg. In 1917, the East St. Louis

00:35:03.329 --> 00:35:06.280
riot exploded. It became one of the bloodiest

00:35:06.280 --> 00:35:08.820
workplace and racial riots in American history.

00:35:09.380 --> 00:35:11.760
Mobs of white workers attacked the black community,

00:35:12.079 --> 00:35:14.840
killing anywhere between 40 and 200 African -Americans,

00:35:15.219 --> 00:35:17.800
burning neighborhoods to the ground and displacing

00:35:17.800 --> 00:35:20.460
over 6 ,000 people from their homes. I want to

00:35:20.460 --> 00:35:22.440
slow down here because the scale of the violence

00:35:22.440 --> 00:35:24.960
is staggering and East St. Louis was just the

00:35:24.960 --> 00:35:27.380
prelude. The violence peaked shortly after the

00:35:27.380 --> 00:35:30.300
end of World War One. Yes. The summer of 1919

00:35:30.300 --> 00:35:33.039
came to be known as the Red Summer because of

00:35:33.039 --> 00:35:35.579
the prolonged incredibly violent rioting that

00:35:35.579 --> 00:35:38.099
erupted between black and white Americans across

00:35:38.099 --> 00:35:41.039
dozens of major U .S. cities, Washington, D .C.,

00:35:41.039 --> 00:35:43.380
Omaha, Knoxville, and many others. The violence

00:35:43.380 --> 00:35:46.199
was particularly acute in Chicago. Returning

00:35:46.199 --> 00:35:49.039
white soldiers from WWI came home expecting their

00:35:49.039 --> 00:35:51.699
old factory jobs, only to find that black men

00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:54.139
had taken those positions during the war. And

00:35:54.139 --> 00:35:56.119
they were often willing to work for far less

00:35:56.119 --> 00:35:58.360
due to their sheer desperation to escape the

00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:00.360
South. Right. The economic tension boiled over.

00:36:00.489 --> 00:36:04.210
It exploded into warfare on the streets. 38 people

00:36:04.210 --> 00:36:06.309
died in Chicago during the Red Summer Riots.

00:36:06.650 --> 00:36:09.510
Over 500 were severely injured and a thousand

00:36:09.510 --> 00:36:11.809
were left completely homeless as their residences

00:36:11.809 --> 00:36:14.349
were torched. And as the decades progressed and

00:36:14.349 --> 00:36:16.750
the second wave brought even more millions of

00:36:16.750 --> 00:36:18.670
migrants into the northern and western cities,

00:36:19.309 --> 00:36:22.409
the hostility didn't disappear. It just transmuted.

00:36:22.989 --> 00:36:27.530
It shifted from overt physical mob violence to

00:36:28.520 --> 00:36:31.280
insidious structural state -sponsored violence.

00:36:31.619 --> 00:36:33.659
I'm talking about the weaponization of exclusionary

00:36:33.659 --> 00:36:35.739
housing policies. Let's explain the mechanics

00:36:35.739 --> 00:36:37.860
of this because this is how the modern American

00:36:37.860 --> 00:36:40.519
city was geographically shaped. We are talking

00:36:40.519 --> 00:36:43.440
about systemic redlining and mortgage discrimination.

00:36:44.059 --> 00:36:46.639
How did redlining actually function as a financial

00:36:46.639 --> 00:36:49.260
quarantine? Well, the federal government, through

00:36:49.260 --> 00:36:51.699
the homeowners loan corporation, literally created

00:36:51.699 --> 00:36:54.940
maps of every major American city. They evaluated

00:36:54.940 --> 00:36:56.880
neighborhoods to determine how safe they were

00:36:56.880 --> 00:36:59.320
for banks to issue mortgages. Neighborhoods with

00:36:59.320 --> 00:37:01.420
African -American populations, regardless of

00:37:01.420 --> 00:37:03.420
the actual wealth or stability of the residents,

00:37:03.800 --> 00:37:06.019
were outlined in red ink. Literally a red line.

00:37:06.380 --> 00:37:09.800
Yes. This red lining officially designated the

00:37:09.800 --> 00:37:12.840
area as hazardous for investment. which meant

00:37:12.840 --> 00:37:15.300
that banks would simply refuse to give a mortgage

00:37:15.300 --> 00:37:17.699
to anyone trying to buy a home in that redlined

00:37:17.699 --> 00:37:21.260
area. And at the same time, white suburbs implemented

00:37:21.260 --> 00:37:24.019
restrictive covenants, which were legal clauses

00:37:24.019 --> 00:37:26.780
in the property deeds explicitly for hitting

00:37:26.780 --> 00:37:29.039
the sale of the home to anyone who wasn't white.

00:37:29.039 --> 00:37:31.599
Right. So you have millions of black migrants

00:37:31.599 --> 00:37:34.380
arriving, but they are financially quarantined.

00:37:34.519 --> 00:37:36.340
They can't get a loan to buy a house in their

00:37:36.340 --> 00:37:38.219
own neighborhood. And it's illegal for them to

00:37:38.219 --> 00:37:40.159
buy a house in the suburbs. It was an invisible

00:37:40.159 --> 00:37:42.659
economic wall that replaced the physical terror

00:37:42.659 --> 00:37:45.380
of the South. Let's look at the statistics regarding

00:37:45.380 --> 00:37:48.599
the GI Bill after World War II to see how devastating

00:37:48.599 --> 00:37:50.380
this was. OK, let's look at the numbers. The

00:37:50.380 --> 00:37:53.000
GI Bill is historically hailed as the great engine

00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:55.460
of the American middle class, allowing returning

00:37:55.460 --> 00:37:57.860
veterans to buy homes and build generational

00:37:57.860 --> 00:38:00.739
wealth. But our sources highlight a staggering

00:38:00.739 --> 00:38:03.900
disparity. In the expanding suburbs of New York

00:38:03.900 --> 00:38:07.000
and northern New Jersey after the war, 67 ,000

00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:10.559
mortgages were insured by the GI Bill. 67 ,000

00:38:10.559 --> 00:38:14.050
new suburban homes. Out of those 67 ,000 mortgages,

00:38:14.429 --> 00:38:16.989
fewer than 100 were taken out by non -white veterans.

00:38:17.110 --> 00:38:20.090
Wait, less than 100. Less than 100. Out of 67

00:38:20.090 --> 00:38:23.289
,000. Exactly. The federal backing was systematically

00:38:23.289 --> 00:38:26.150
denied to black veterans due to redlining and

00:38:26.150 --> 00:38:28.889
restrictive covenants. Less than 100 out of 67

00:38:28.889 --> 00:38:31.630
,000. That is the exact mathematical definition

00:38:31.630 --> 00:38:35.329
of systemic exclusion. So the millions of arriving

00:38:35.329 --> 00:38:37.710
migrants were forced by these invisible boundaries

00:38:37.710 --> 00:38:41.269
into incredibly overcrowded, geographically constrained

00:38:41.159 --> 00:38:44.440
inner -city neighborhoods creating what sociologists

00:38:44.440 --> 00:38:47.699
termed black metropolises. So we have to ask

00:38:47.699 --> 00:38:50.559
ourselves what does this all mean? for the human

00:38:50.559 --> 00:38:53.059
beings actually living through this. Right. Put

00:38:53.059 --> 00:38:55.559
yourself in the shoes of a migrant. You exhibit

00:38:55.559 --> 00:38:58.039
incredible bravery to escape the sharecropping

00:38:58.039 --> 00:39:00.219
debt traps and the terrifying threat of lynching

00:39:00.219 --> 00:39:02.800
in the South. You take a train north, seeking

00:39:02.800 --> 00:39:04.619
the promised land you read about in a smuggled

00:39:04.619 --> 00:39:07.519
newspaper, only to be met with workplace walkouts,

00:39:07.960 --> 00:39:10.179
race riots like the Red Summer burning your neighborhood,

00:39:10.599 --> 00:39:12.760
and bankers literally redlining a map so you

00:39:12.760 --> 00:39:14.659
can never build wealth through home ownership

00:39:14.659 --> 00:39:16.849
in the suburbs. It's overwhelming. It sounds

00:39:16.849 --> 00:39:18.829
like an inescapable, crushing nightmare from

00:39:18.829 --> 00:39:21.449
every direction. What it means is that we must

00:39:21.449 --> 00:39:25.789
recognize the profound, almost unimaginable resilience

00:39:25.789 --> 00:39:28.849
of this demographic. They were physically threatened

00:39:28.849 --> 00:39:31.429
and legally trapped in the South, and they were

00:39:31.429 --> 00:39:34.349
systemically walled off and financially quarantined

00:39:34.349 --> 00:39:37.409
in the North. Yet they survived. They more than

00:39:37.409 --> 00:39:39.449
survived. Exactly. They didn't just survive,

00:39:39.590 --> 00:39:42.590
they adapted. Barred from participating in the

00:39:42.590 --> 00:39:45.230
wider white economy of the city, they built thriving,

00:39:45.730 --> 00:39:48.909
self -sustaining, internal economies within these

00:39:48.909 --> 00:39:51.030
redlined districts. They built their own ecosystem.

00:39:51.230 --> 00:39:52.969
They did. They built their own banks because

00:39:52.969 --> 00:39:55.469
the downtown banks wouldn't lend to them. They

00:39:55.469 --> 00:39:57.289
built their own insurance companies, their own

00:39:57.289 --> 00:39:59.929
thriving newspapers, massive church congregations,

00:40:00.210 --> 00:40:02.630
and vibrant cultural institutions in places like

00:40:02.630 --> 00:40:05.309
Chicago's Bronzeville, New York's Harlem, and

00:40:05.309 --> 00:40:07.369
Pittsburgh's Hill District. They turned their

00:40:07.369 --> 00:40:09.550
quarantine zones into thriving metropolises.

00:40:09.789 --> 00:40:12.690
Which carries us right into the profound cultural

00:40:12.690 --> 00:40:15.170
impact of this movement. Because when you push

00:40:15.170 --> 00:40:17.889
millions of people seeking freedom into concentrated

00:40:17.889 --> 00:40:21.489
northern urban enclaves, and you explicitly bar

00:40:21.489 --> 00:40:23.710
them from integrating into the wider suburban

00:40:23.710 --> 00:40:27.510
society, you inadvertently create massive, highly

00:40:27.510 --> 00:40:30.550
pressurized incubators for unprecedented cultural

00:40:30.550 --> 00:40:33.309
creativity. The concentration of talent was incredible.

00:40:33.690 --> 00:40:36.429
The concentration of experience, pain, hope,

00:40:36.670 --> 00:40:39.570
and sheer proximity resulted in an explosion

00:40:39.570 --> 00:40:42.309
of art. Let's get into the influence on northern

00:40:42.309 --> 00:40:45.219
music and literature. The Great Migration directly

00:40:45.219 --> 00:40:47.360
laid the demographic foundation for some of the

00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:49.119
most important cultural movements in American

00:40:49.119 --> 00:40:51.360
history. The most famous, of course, being the

00:40:51.360 --> 00:40:53.420
Harlem Renaissance in New York and the Chicago

00:40:53.420 --> 00:40:56.059
Black Renaissance. The density of these neighborhoods

00:40:56.059 --> 00:40:59.019
allowed artists, writers, and musicians to collaborate,

00:40:59.539 --> 00:41:01.800
influence one another, and build a massive audience

00:41:01.800 --> 00:41:04.320
that shared their specific generational experience.

00:41:04.820 --> 00:41:06.619
The literature that emerged from this period

00:41:06.619 --> 00:41:10.110
is foundational to the American canon. The Chicago

00:41:10.110 --> 00:41:12.369
Defender, which we talked about earlier as a

00:41:12.369 --> 00:41:14.929
purely logistical hub publishing train schedules,

00:41:15.670 --> 00:41:19.150
also evolved to act as a crucial cultural cornerstone.

00:41:19.230 --> 00:41:22.130
Yes, they became a literary hub. They published

00:41:22.130 --> 00:41:25.070
the early writings and poems of literary titans

00:41:25.070 --> 00:41:27.789
like Langston Hughes and Gwendolyn Brooks, who

00:41:27.789 --> 00:41:30.750
are capturing the rhythm and reality of the urban

00:41:30.750 --> 00:41:33.429
migrant experience. And in the theater, you have

00:41:33.429 --> 00:41:36.489
playwrights like August Wilson. His masterpiece,

00:41:36.730 --> 00:41:39.510
the Pulitzer Prize -winning Play the Piano Lesson,

00:41:39.869 --> 00:41:42.309
draws direct inspiration from the legacy of the

00:41:42.309 --> 00:41:44.889
migration, exploring the tension between the

00:41:44.889 --> 00:41:47.469
trauma left behind in the South and the struggle

00:41:47.469 --> 00:41:49.750
to build a new life in the North. Oh, absolutely.

00:41:49.949 --> 00:41:51.469
And in the visual arts, you have figures like

00:41:51.469 --> 00:41:53.909
Jacob Lawrence. When he was just a young man

00:41:53.909 --> 00:41:57.530
living in New York in 1941, he created the migration

00:41:57.530 --> 00:42:01.179
series. Those paintings are iconic. Yes, an iconic

00:42:01.179 --> 00:42:04.360
sequence of 60 vivid paintings chronicling the

00:42:04.360 --> 00:42:06.820
exact journey we've been discussing today, the

00:42:06.820 --> 00:42:09.119
struggles, the trains, the hopes of the African

00:42:09.119 --> 00:42:11.519
-American migrants. It was exhibited at the Museum

00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:14.539
of Modern Art and immediately cemented him as

00:42:14.539 --> 00:42:16.840
one of the most important visual artists of the

00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:19.400
20th century. But if we're talking about cultural

00:42:19.400 --> 00:42:22.059
impact that rippled out, transcended the red

00:42:22.059 --> 00:42:25.280
line boundaries and touched quite literally every

00:42:25.280 --> 00:42:27.500
single person listening to this deep dive right

00:42:27.500 --> 00:42:30.420
now. we have to talk about the music. We do,

00:42:30.739 --> 00:42:34.460
because the Great Migration fundamentally, irreversibly

00:42:34.460 --> 00:42:37.639
altered the trajectory of American and global

00:42:37.639 --> 00:42:40.789
popular music. The sources detail how blues singers,

00:42:41.190 --> 00:42:43.750
seeking to escape the exact same racial discrimination

00:42:43.750 --> 00:42:46.449
and economic dead ends of the sharecropping fields

00:42:46.449 --> 00:42:48.909
we discussed, packed up their guitars and joined

00:42:48.909 --> 00:42:51.530
the migration. They moved from the rural acoustic

00:42:51.530 --> 00:42:53.550
environments of the Mississippi Delta to the

00:42:53.550 --> 00:42:55.809
industrial, crowded North, primarily flowing

00:42:55.809 --> 00:42:58.309
up that Illinois Central Railroad line straight

00:42:58.309 --> 00:43:01.030
into Chicago. We're talking about absolute legends

00:43:01.030 --> 00:43:03.510
of the genre making this journey. Muddy Waters,

00:43:03.869 --> 00:43:06.070
Chester Burnett, who the world knows better as

00:43:06.070 --> 00:43:08.730
Howlin' Wolf and Buddy Guy. But the music couldn't

00:43:08.730 --> 00:43:11.869
just stay the same. It had to adapt to its new

00:43:11.869 --> 00:43:14.789
environment. Explain the mechanics of how the

00:43:14.789 --> 00:43:17.579
sound actually shifted. Right. So down in the

00:43:17.579 --> 00:43:20.619
rural south, the Delta Blues was primarily acoustic.

00:43:20.739 --> 00:43:24.019
It was a man, an acoustic guitar, maybe a harmonica,

00:43:24.159 --> 00:43:26.199
playing on a porch or in a small juke joint.

00:43:26.460 --> 00:43:28.960
But when they arrived in the northern cities,

00:43:29.179 --> 00:43:31.960
the environment was entirely different. Much

00:43:31.960 --> 00:43:34.800
louder, I imagine. Exactly. They are playing

00:43:34.800 --> 00:43:37.820
in crowded, incredibly loud clubs on the south

00:43:37.820 --> 00:43:40.400
side of Chicago. You have the roar of the elevated

00:43:40.400 --> 00:43:43.619
trains going by, the noise of a packed room of

00:43:43.619 --> 00:43:46.199
factory workers letting off steam. An acoustic

00:43:46.199 --> 00:43:48.099
guitar simply couldn't cut through the noise

00:43:48.099 --> 00:43:50.320
of the bustling, crowded, industrial northern

00:43:50.320 --> 00:43:53.280
city. So out of sheer acoustic necessity, they

00:43:53.280 --> 00:43:55.460
adapted. They plugged in. They amplified the

00:43:55.460 --> 00:43:57.900
instruments. The Great Migration, Birth, Chicago,

00:43:58.179 --> 00:44:00.920
Electric Blues. They added drum kits, electric

00:44:00.920 --> 00:44:03.920
bass, and amplified harmonicas to match the volume

00:44:03.920 --> 00:44:06.239
and the frantic pacing of the urban environment.

00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:09.059
There is a remarkably powerful quote in our sources.

00:44:09.630 --> 00:44:12.250
from Delta -born pianist Eddie Boyd, speaking

00:44:12.250 --> 00:44:15.429
to Living Blues magazine, that perfectly encapsulates

00:44:15.429 --> 00:44:18.610
this intersection of geography, trauma, and art.

00:44:18.730 --> 00:44:20.909
Let's hear it. He said, I thought of coming to

00:44:20.909 --> 00:44:22.829
Chicago where I could get away from some of that

00:44:22.829 --> 00:44:24.949
racism and where I would have an opportunity

00:44:24.949 --> 00:44:28.230
to, well, do something with my talent. It wasn't

00:44:28.230 --> 00:44:30.070
peaches and cream, man, but it was a hell of

00:44:30.070 --> 00:44:31.630
a lot better than down there where I was born.

00:44:31.929 --> 00:44:34.510
It's such a poignant reflection. The trauma didn't

00:44:34.510 --> 00:44:36.869
magically disappear in Chicago, it just changed

00:44:36.869 --> 00:44:39.849
shape. But he had the opportunity to wield his

00:44:39.849 --> 00:44:42.769
talent. The Delta Blues didn't just move, it

00:44:42.769 --> 00:44:46.090
morphed. It absorbed the grit, the sheer volume,

00:44:46.289 --> 00:44:48.730
the electricity, and the frantic pacing of the

00:44:48.730 --> 00:44:51.250
northern factory city. And we cannot overstate

00:44:51.250 --> 00:44:53.690
the historical importance of that specific shift.

00:44:54.309 --> 00:44:56.590
That electrified urban blues sound developed

00:44:56.590 --> 00:44:59.869
by migrants like Muddy Waters in Chicago is the

00:44:59.869 --> 00:45:02.769
literal, direct, undeniable foundation for modern

00:45:02.769 --> 00:45:05.530
rhythm blues and subsequently rock and roll.

00:45:05.690 --> 00:45:09.230
Exactly. You don't get Chuck Berry without Chicago

00:45:09.230 --> 00:45:12.050
electric blues. You don't get the Rolling Stones

00:45:12.050 --> 00:45:14.329
or Led Zeppelin without Muddy Waters and Howlin'

00:45:14.510 --> 00:45:17.349
Wolf plugging in their guitars. And Muddy Waters

00:45:17.349 --> 00:45:19.269
isn't playing an electric guitar in a Chicago

00:45:19.269 --> 00:45:21.829
club if he isn't participating in the Great Migration

00:45:21.829 --> 00:45:25.250
to escape the Mississippi Delta. The entire soundtrack

00:45:25.250 --> 00:45:28.389
of the 20th century is a direct byproduct of

00:45:28.389 --> 00:45:30.769
this demographic shift. The culture of the United

00:45:30.769 --> 00:45:33.789
States was irreversibly transformed by the artistic

00:45:33.789 --> 00:45:36.829
output of these concentrated resilient communities.

00:45:37.429 --> 00:45:40.429
The art was born of necessity, forged in quarantine,

00:45:40.889 --> 00:45:42.949
and ultimately conquered the world. Which brings

00:45:42.949 --> 00:45:45.789
us to the synthesis of this massive 60 -year

00:45:45.789 --> 00:45:48.690
journey. We've tracked an incredible historical

00:45:48.690 --> 00:45:51.309
arc today. We watched six million individuals

00:45:51.309 --> 00:45:53.909
pushed to the absolute breaking point by the

00:45:53.909 --> 00:45:55.869
rigged economic collapse of the sharecropping

00:45:55.869 --> 00:45:59.050
system and the horrific systemic racial terror

00:45:59.050 --> 00:46:01.849
of the Jim Crow South. We saw them pulled northward

00:46:01.849 --> 00:46:04.510
and westward by the insatiable industrial engines

00:46:04.510 --> 00:46:06.989
of two world wars, navigating their way out of

00:46:06.989 --> 00:46:09.269
the South via complex community networks, chain

00:46:09.269 --> 00:46:11.809
migration, and smuggled papers like the Chicago

00:46:11.809 --> 00:46:14.639
Defender. We saw them overcoming frantic southern

00:46:14.639 --> 00:46:16.880
attempts to physically trap them at the train

00:46:16.880 --> 00:46:19.659
stations and surviving northern attempts to redline

00:46:19.659 --> 00:46:22.360
them into overcrowded slums. And ultimately,

00:46:22.659 --> 00:46:24.940
despite every legal, physical, and financial

00:46:24.940 --> 00:46:27.300
obstacle thrown in their path, their resilience

00:46:27.300 --> 00:46:29.940
reshaped the political demographics, the literature,

00:46:30.159 --> 00:46:32.699
the art, and the foundational music of the entire

00:46:32.699 --> 00:46:35.639
country. The legacy of the Great Migration is

00:46:35.639 --> 00:46:38.679
truly omnipresent. It is woven into the very

00:46:38.679 --> 00:46:42.199
fabric of how America looks, sounds, and operates

00:46:42.199 --> 00:46:45.059
today. It is. I want to remind you, the listener,

00:46:45.500 --> 00:46:47.719
the next time you look at a demographic map of

00:46:47.719 --> 00:46:50.199
the United States when you see large, vibrant

00:46:50.199 --> 00:46:53.119
African -American populations in Detroit or Philadelphia

00:46:53.119 --> 00:46:55.980
or Los Angeles or Seattle or the next time you

00:46:55.980 --> 00:46:58.440
listen to a heavy electric blues guitar riff,

00:46:58.780 --> 00:47:02.179
you are experiencing the direct living ripples

00:47:02.179 --> 00:47:04.239
of the Great Migration. migration, you are looking

00:47:04.239 --> 00:47:06.800
at the legacy of millions of individual acts

00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:09.639
of courage. And yet history is never static.

00:47:10.159 --> 00:47:12.820
The snow globe never truly settles permanently.

00:47:13.460 --> 00:47:16.039
I want to leave the listener with one final fascinating

00:47:16.039 --> 00:47:18.059
data point from our demographic sources that

00:47:18.059 --> 00:47:19.940
brings the story full circle. OK, what is it?

00:47:20.119 --> 00:47:22.900
Since the 1970s, as the industrial boom in the

00:47:22.900 --> 00:47:25.460
northern Rust Belt faded and as the civil rights

00:47:25.460 --> 00:47:27.780
movement secured hard fought political and social

00:47:27.780 --> 00:47:30.539
gains in the South, there has been a documented

00:47:30.539 --> 00:47:34.469
demographic phenomena. dubbed the new great migration

00:47:34.469 --> 00:47:36.949
a reversal of the historical trend precisely

00:47:37.150 --> 00:47:40.349
Driven by deindustrialization, colder climates,

00:47:40.590 --> 00:47:43.230
and high costs of living in the North, juxtaposed

00:47:43.230 --> 00:47:45.289
with lower costs of living and massive corporate

00:47:45.289 --> 00:47:47.730
job growth in the New South, black Americans

00:47:47.730 --> 00:47:50.429
are returning to southern states in massive numbers.

00:47:50.510 --> 00:47:53.750
Wow, really? Returning south? Yes. The black

00:47:53.750 --> 00:47:56.250
populations of metro areas like Atlanta, Charlotte,

00:47:56.429 --> 00:47:58.889
Houston, and Dallas -Fort Worth have absolutely

00:47:58.889 --> 00:48:01.530
exploded over the last few decades. The snow

00:48:01.530 --> 00:48:04.130
globe is being shale again, but the snow is swirling

00:48:04.130 --> 00:48:06.809
in the exact opposite direction. It's a fascinating

00:48:06.809 --> 00:48:09.809
twist, and it challenges us to ponder a profound

00:48:09.809 --> 00:48:13.170
question. What will happen to the cultural identity

00:48:13.170 --> 00:48:15.889
of those historic northern black metropolises,

00:48:16.010 --> 00:48:18.510
places like Harlem, Bronzeville, and Detroit,

00:48:18.889 --> 00:48:20.710
now that the descendants of the original Great

00:48:20.710 --> 00:48:23.409
Migration are charting a course back to the very

00:48:23.409 --> 00:48:26.130
region, sometimes the very same states? Their

00:48:26.130 --> 00:48:28.750
ancestors risked absolutely everything to escape

00:48:28.750 --> 00:48:31.050
a century ago. It proves that the demographic

00:48:31.050 --> 00:48:33.449
map of America isn't a settled picture at all.

00:48:33.659 --> 00:48:36.000
The push and pull factors are always evolving,

00:48:36.360 --> 00:48:38.340
always pulling people toward new opportunities.

00:48:38.659 --> 00:48:40.679
The map is still being drawn. Thank you for joining

00:48:40.679 --> 00:48:42.940
us on this deep dive. Keep questioning the map,

00:48:43.159 --> 00:48:44.679
keep listening to the history and the music,

00:48:44.920 --> 00:48:45.920
and we'll see you next time.