American History · 8th Grade · Industrialization, Immigration & Reform · Weeks 28-36

Great Migration & Early Civil Rights Leaders

Explore the movement of African Americans to Northern cities and the emergence of new civil rights strategies.

• Common Core State Standards
• C3: D2.His.14.6-8
• C3: D2.Geo.7.6-8

About This Topic

The Great Migration, spanning roughly 1910 to 1970 in two major waves, saw approximately six million African Americans relocate from the rural South to Northern and Western cities. The first wave, from 1910 to 1940, was driven by the 'push' of Jim Crow violence and agricultural displacement: the boll weevil devastated Southern cotton farming after 1915, eliminating the economic foundation of sharecropping. The 'pull' came from industrial jobs opened in Northern cities as European immigration slowed during World War I. Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, and New York's Harlem neighborhood became centers of a new African American urban culture.

For 8th graders in the US curriculum, this topic requires holding two things in mind simultaneously: the genuine agency of millions of people making calculated decisions to improve their lives, and the significant limits they encountered in the North. The intellectual debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois maps onto real strategic questions about how to achieve justice within a hostile system. Washington died in 1915 and Du Bois's approach, centered on the newly formed NAACP, gained traction through the migration period and into the civil rights movement.

Mapping activities and comparative source analysis work especially well here. When students physically trace migration routes and then read first-person accounts of what arrivals found in Northern cities, they build concrete understanding of both the genuine opportunity and the persistent discrimination that defined African American urban life in this era.

Key Questions

1. Explain the 'push' and 'pull' factors that led to the Great Migration.
2. Analyze the challenges and opportunities faced by African Americans in Northern cities.
3. Compare the approaches of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois to achieving racial equality.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze the primary 'push' and 'pull' factors that motivated African Americans to migrate from the rural South to Northern cities.
• Compare and contrast the strategies proposed by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois for advancing racial equality.
• Evaluate the opportunities and challenges faced by African Americans upon their arrival and settlement in Northern urban centers.
• Explain how the Great Migration contributed to the development of new African American cultural centers and communities.
• Synthesize information from primary sources to describe the lived experiences of migrants during the Great Migration.

Before You Start

Reconstruction Era and Its Aftermath

Why: Students need to understand the political and social conditions in the South following the Civil War to grasp the 'push' factors of the Great Migration.

Industrial Revolution in the US

Why: Knowledge of industrial growth and labor demands in Northern cities is essential for understanding the 'pull' factors of the Great Migration.

Key Vocabulary

Great Migration	The mass movement of African Americans from the rural South to Northern, Midwestern, and Western cities, occurring in two major waves from roughly 1910 to 1970.
Jim Crow Laws	State and local laws enacted in the Southern United States that enforced racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans.
Sharecropping	A system where a farmer cultivates land owned by someone else and receives a portion of the crop as payment, often trapping farmers in cycles of debt.
Urbanization	The process of population shift from rural areas to urban areas, the corresponding decrease in the proportion of people living in rural areas, and the ways in which societies adapt to this change.
NAACP	The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an organization founded in 1909 to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to eliminate racial hatred and discrimination.

Watch Out for These Misconceptions

Common Misconception

The Great Migration ended racism for African Americans and provided genuine equal opportunity in the North.

What to Teach Instead

Northern cities offered higher wages and less formal legal discrimination, but housing covenants, school districting, employment discrimination, and race riots maintained profound inequality. The 1919 Chicago Race Riot, for example, killed 38 people and injured hundreds within the very city thousands of migrants had recently arrived hoping to build better lives.

Common Misconception

Booker T. Washington accepted racial inequality and did not truly want equality for African Americans.

What to Teach Instead

Washington's approach was a pragmatic calculation made in the specific context of the 1890s South, where political opposition to Black advancement was backed by systematic violence. Understanding the constraints he operated within, rather than judging him by later standards, is essential for historical empathy. His vocational education programs at Tuskegee had measurable positive impacts on thousands of students' lives.

Active Learning Ideas

Mapping Activity: Push and Pull Factors

Small groups work with maps of the US, marking Southern states with documented push factors such as lynching rates, specific Jim Crow laws, and crop failure data, and marking Northern cities with pull factors including industrial wages and community institutions. Groups trace specific migration routes using primary source accounts and discuss which factors were most frequently cited by migrants themselves.

35 min·Small Groups

Comparative Document Analysis: Washington vs. Du Bois

Pairs read excerpts from Washington's 1895 Atlanta Exposition Address and Du Bois's 1903 'The Souls of Black Folk.' Students identify each man's proposed path to equality, the underlying assumptions about what was politically possible at the time, and the specific historical context, including year, audience, and political climate, that shaped each argument.

40 min·Pairs

Gallery Walk: Harlem in the 1920s

Stations feature photographs, music descriptions, newspaper headlines, and poetry from the Harlem Renaissance. Students identify how African American cultural production in Northern cities both reflected the Great Migration experience and created new forms of political and artistic expression, noting specific connections between migration and cultural output.

30 min·Individual

Real-World Connections

• Urban planners in cities like Chicago and Detroit today still grapple with the long-term impacts of the Great Migration, including housing patterns and the development of distinct neighborhood identities.
• Historians and sociologists analyze census data and oral histories to understand demographic shifts, similar to how demographers study modern migration patterns for economic and social policy.

Assessment Ideas

Exit Ticket

Provide students with a Venn diagram. Ask them to compare and contrast the experiences of African Americans in the rural South versus Northern cities, listing at least two 'push' factors and two 'pull' factors in the appropriate sections.

Discussion Prompt

Pose the question: 'Was the North a true land of opportunity for African Americans during the Great Migration?' Facilitate a class discussion where students use evidence from readings and lessons to support their arguments, referencing both challenges and advancements.

Quick Check

Present students with short biographical excerpts of Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois. Ask them to identify one key difference in their philosophies regarding racial uplift and write it in a complete sentence.

Frequently Asked Questions

What were the main causes of the Great Migration?

Push factors from the South included Jim Crow laws, the constant threat of racial violence, low sharecropper wages, and boll weevil crop devastation after 1915. Pull factors in the North included industrial wages two to three times higher than Southern farm work, less formal legal segregation, established African American communities in cities like Chicago and Detroit, and factory jobs made available as European immigration slowed during World War I.

How were African Americans treated in Northern cities during the Great Migration?

Northern cities offered higher wages and no formal Jim Crow laws, but racism persisted through different mechanisms. Housing covenants legally prevented Black families from buying homes in white neighborhoods, concentrating them in specific districts. Unions frequently excluded Black workers. Race riots in East St. Louis in 1917 and Chicago in 1919 showed that racial violence was not confined to the South. Migrants found genuine opportunity but rarely the full equality they sought.

How did Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois differ in their approaches to civil rights?

Washington, in his 1895 Atlanta speech, argued that African Americans should focus on vocational education and economic self-sufficiency before demanding political rights, accepting temporary accommodation with segregation to build economic strength. Du Bois argued that political and civil rights could not be deferred: without the vote and equal legal standing, economic progress was impossible to secure and unsafe to maintain. Du Bois helped found the NAACP in 1909 to pursue legal and political equality directly.

How can active learning help students understand the Great Migration?

Mapping migration routes using documented push and pull factors and reading first-person accounts alongside census statistics connects the large-scale demographic pattern to individual human decisions. When students must explain both why someone left Mississippi and what they actually found in Chicago using primary evidence, they build historical reasoning that balances structural forces with personal agency. Comparing Washington's and Du Bois's strategies through their own words also models how people can pursue the same goal through fundamentally different means.