Narrative overview. Becoming African American
The first great migration
The second great migration
The civil rights movement
The "return" migration
The legacy of the great migration
Biographies. Robert S. Abbott (1870-1940): newspaper publisher, founder, and editor of the Chicago Defender
Mary McLeod Bethune (1875-1955): educator and civil rights activist
Tom Bradley (1917-1998): politician and first black mayor of Los Angeles
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963): scholar, historian, and civil rights leader
Marcus Garvey (1887-1940): Jamaican black nationalist and founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association
Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965): playwright and author of A Raisin in the Sun
Langston Hughes (1902-1967): poet, short story writer, and playwright of the Harlem Renaissance
Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968): civil rights leader and president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000): creator of The Migration and other artistic works about the African-American experience
A. Philip Randolph (1889-1979): labor and civil rights leader
Malcolm X (1925-1965): political and religious leader and civil rights activist
Primary sources. The Chicago Defender reports on lynchings in the Jim Crow South
The massacre of East St. Louis
The Chicago race riot of 1919
African Americans praise life in the North
Langston Hughes remembers the Harlem Renaissance
President Roosevelt signs the Fair Employment Act
An eyewitness account of the 1943 race riot in Detroit
President Truman integrates the American military
An African-American migrant builds a new life in the North
The Kerner report analyzes the root causes of racial tensions in America
Reasons for the "return migration" to the South
The great migration and its enduring impact on America.