What Factors Prompted Many African Americans To Move Towards Northern Cities?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

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What factors prompted many African Americans to move towards northern cities? Driven from their homes by

unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws

, many Black Americans headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that arose during the First World War.

Which pull factor is responsible for the migration of African Americans from the South to North in the early to mid twentieth century?

African Americans have displayed two distinct internal migration patterns in the United States during the twentieth century. -Mechanization of agriculture served as a push factor, while

manufacturing jobs in the north

acted as a pull factor that encouraged African Americans to migrate to the northern cities.

Why did African Americans move North?

Driven from their homes by

unsatisfactory economic opportunities and harsh segregationist laws

, many Black Americans headed north, where they took advantage of the need for industrial workers that arose during the First World War.

What were three reasons for African American migration to the North and west quizlet?

Causes for migration included

decreasing cotton prices, the lack of immigrant workers in the North, increased manufacturing as a result of the war, and the strengthening of the KKK

. Migration led to higher wages, more educational opportunities, and better standards of life for some blacks.

What caused the Great Migration of African Americans from the South to large northern cities quizlet?

The primary factors for migration among southern African Americans were segregation, an increase in the spread of racist ideology, widespread lynching (nearly 3,500 African Americans were lynched between 1882 and 1968), and lack of social and economic opportunities in the South.

The driving force behind the mass movement was to

escape racial violence, pursue economic and educational opportunities, and obtain freedom from the oppression of Jim Crow

. The Great Migration is often broken into two phases, coinciding with the participation and effects of the United States in both World Wars.


Nearly a quarter of the Africans brought to North America came from Angola

, while an equal percentage, arriving later, originated in Senegambia. Over 40 percent of Africans entered the U.S. through the port city of Charleston, South Carolina, the center of the U.S. slave trade.

“Pull” factors included

encouraging reports of good wages and living conditions that spread by word of mouth

and that appeared in African American newspapers.


Economic exploitation

, social terror and political disenfranchisement were the push factors. The political push factors being Jim Crow, and in particular, disenfranchisement. Black people lost the ability to vote.

In the 50 years following the end of Reconstruction, African Americans transformed American life once more: They moved. Driven in part by

economic concerns, and in part by frustration with the straitened social conditions of the South

, in the 1870s African Americans began moving North and West in great numbers.

Large numbers of Africans came to the Americas

to find employment and to work on the railroads

.

African Americans were pushed from their communities by a lack of economic opportunities and harsh segregationist legislation, and they migrated north

to take advantage of the need for factory workers during World War I

.

Which best describes how the Great Migration affected Northern cities?

Northern cities grew more diverse as African Americans shared their culture.

Most of the millions of slaves brought to the New World went to

the Caribbean and South America

. An estimated 500,000 were taken directly from Africa to North America. But those numbers were buttressed by the domestic slave trade, which started in the 1760s – a half century before legal importation of slaves ended.

There were also many pull factors involved. The

shortage of labor in the North

was caused by the First World War which generated a greater demand for labor and also diminished the supply of laborers in the North. Industries in the North needed workers to produce materials for war.

The economic motivations for migration were a combination of the desire to escape oppressive economic conditions in the south and

the promise of greater prosperity in the north

. Since their Emancipation from slavery, southern rural blacks had suffered in a plantation economy that offered little chance of advancement.

Carlos Perez
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Carlos Perez
Carlos Perez is an education expert and teacher with over 20 years of experience working with youth. He holds a degree in education and has taught in both public and private schools, as well as in community-based organizations. Carlos is passionate about empowering young people and helping them reach their full potential through education and mentorship.