Hartford Web Publishing
Hartford Black History Project: Citizens of Color: Black Society After Civil War
Discusses the history of the African American community in Hartford, Connecticut, in terms of the migration of former slaves to the city right after the end of the Civil War. Also discusses a second wave of migration as African Americans...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Teacher Serve: African American Christianity Pt Ii: From Civil War to the Great Migration
Essay focussing on African American Christianity from emancipation to the great migration. Site offers photos, student discussion guidelines, historian debate and links to related material.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Volume Iii, 1917 1968: Migrations
Collection of 11 primary resources exploring the migrations made by African Americans in the 20th Century and the effects they had. Includes text links, notes and questions for discussion.
New York Public Library
The Great Migration: Two American Tales Lesson Plan: The Immigrants' Experiences
Part of an online exhibit that describes the experiences of migrants to the cities of the United States. Two American Tales asks young scholars to compare and contrast the nearly contemporaneous experiences of European immigrants and...
University of Chicago
University of Chicago Library: The Great Migration
Read about the African American migration north in the early 20th Century through a collection of migrant letters and a lecture by scholar James Grossman.
University of Illinois
University of Illinois Urbana Champaign: Eslarp: Race Riot at East St. Louis, 1917
This chapter from a book about East St. Louis relates the horror of the East St. Louis Massacre where maurading whites fired on African Americans and torched their homes. Read about the aftermath of the massacre and what happened to...
University of California
History Project: Chicago Race Riot, 1919
This instructional activity for high school students explores the race riot in Chicago in the summer of 1919. Students are asked to explain the reasons for the riot and address the questions in the instructional activity. Included are...
Stanford University
Stanford History Education Group: Great Migration
[Free Registration/Login Required] Using primary sources, students will form their own conclusions as to why African-Americans moved north in large numbers during the early 1900's. Included in this lesson plan is a PowerPoint to use for...
OpenStax
Open Stax: Urbanization 1870 1900: Great Migration and New European Immigration
What caused the influx of African Americans and European immigrants into urban centers in the late 19th century? Learn about some of the discriminatory and anti-immigrant laws that were enacted to restrict their rights. Includes a chart...
The Newberry Library
Newberry Library: Chicago and the Great Migration, 1915 to 1950
Primary source material with lesson and classroom activities in which students analyze the causes and effects of the African American Great Migration to Chicago between 1915 and 1950.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Forward:1917
Letters, an article, a pamphlet, and a song that point to greater black migration from the South and black cultural achievements in the twentieth century. The texts examines how migrations north affected the relationships of African...
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Migrations: Negro Migration During War
An analysis of the reasons why blacks moved north around the time of World War I. An article by Emmett J. Scott (1873-1957), who for a time served as Booker T. Washington's personal secretary, is linked to this resource.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Writing for Help, Making of African American Identity: V. 3
Letters by African Americans seeking help to leave the South. They explore issues including identity, family, community, and the struggles induced by the need to migrate north.
National Humanities Center
National Humanities Center: Toolbox Library: Making of African American Identity: Chicago Riots
An analysis of the 1919 Chicago race riot and a description of African American life in Chicago. One analysis is provided by Charles Johnson, editor of the Urban League's magazine Opportunity, describing the problems that beset black...
Curated OER
History Matters: Seven Letters From the Great Migration
These seven letters to the Chicago "Defender," a black newspaper, offer accounts from individuals who chose to leave the South from 1916-1921 in search of better opportunities as a part of what is now known as the Great Migration.
Library of Congress
Loc: The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship
Online exhibit from the Library of Congress explores black America's quest for equality from the early national period through the twentieth century. Exhibit contains a wealth of items including books, government documents, manuscripts,...
Digital History
Digital History:the Great Migration
The Great Migration for African Americans began during World War I as blacks left the segregated south to find jobs in the north. Read about how segregation followed them into their northern neighborhoods. See also how the Harlem...
New York Public Library
In Motion: The African American Migration Experience
A look at the migration of the African American people. The site includes images, texts, maps, and timeline.
Chicago History Museum
Encyclopedia of Chicago: Great Migration
Read this historical account of events that became known as the Great Migration, the movement of African Americans from the South to the North, and the effect this had on Chicago and other urban northern cities.
Other
Amistad Digital Resource: The Great Migration
Read about the reasons for the Great Migration of African Americans from the Deep Sourth to northern cities in the first few decades of the 20th century. After the Great Depression, the migration numbers increased again. Find out what...
Other
Metrocosm: Visualizing the Great Migration
The Great Migration had a profound impact on many aspects of American life. Watch this map to see how the growth of African Americans living in the north grew from 1910-1970. Read the reasons for the migration and the challenges they...
Other
Postbellum African American Society and Culture: Black Migration
From the Encyclopedia of American Social History. Read about the black migration to the West, primarily Kansas and Oklahoma after the end of Reconstruction and the institution of black codes in the South.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: Exodusters: African American Migration to the Great Plains
The resources here, including letters, photographs, official documents, and maps, represent the exodus of African Americans from the South to the Great Plains in the late 1800s.
Digital Public Library of America
Dpla: The Great Migration
This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration of African Americans to the Northern and Midwestern states in the early 1900s. Set includes an overview, primary sources, links to related resources, and a teaching guide.