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The African-American Quest for Upward Mobility: Roots from the Great Migration (Essay)
(Barbu, 2000)
The plight of African-Americans is one that has endured for several centuries. Starting out as captive servants from Africa, they saw their opportunities wane and wax as time went on, at one point becoming mere possessions of the White people who lay claim to them. After southern slaves were emancipated from their owners, the freedom opportunities were not yet ripe; a catalyst was necessary to bring into fruition the promises of emancipation. In search of social justice and equality, African-Americans sought opportunity in the urban, industrial regions of the north and west, and as a result gave birth to a mass migratory movement.
For the scope of this paper, I will examine the African-American situation from the post civil war era that led to the mass trend to migrate to a new paradigm of opportunity. This era will include the time after emancipation and will culminate at the period of the second world war. The major tenets of this movement include the migration itself, the urbanization factor, the industrialization factor, and how the first and second world wars impacted the lives of African-Americans.
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The Stifling South
Torture. Death. And even worst, the rape of esteem that a person should possess. These are the gifts that the White Southerners gave to their former slaves upon emancipation. The law had changed, but the power of the White determination had not. W.E.B. Dubois remarks in his prolific work A Litany in Atlanta:
"Behold this maimed and broken thing; Dear God, it was an humble Black man who toiled and sweat to save a bit from the pittance paid him. They told him: work and rise. He worked. Did this man sin? Nay, but some one told how some one said another did--one whom he had never seen nor known. Yet for that man's crime this man lieth maimed and murdered, his wife naked to shame, his children, to poverty and evil."1
After emancipation, African-Americans in the south found it difficult to reach the plateau of social and economic freedom that the Whites enjoyed. Richard Wright emphasizes the opportunity, veiled in oppression, for Blacks in the South when he writes from his Ethics of living Jim Crow, "Lawd, man! Ef it wuzn't fer them polices 'n them 'ol lynch-mobs, there wouldn't be nothin' but uproar down here!"2 A new paradigm in African-American existence was looming, but it would require yet more sacrifice and initiative. There was opportunity in the north
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The Impact of Migration
Black Southerners found a second emancipation(3) in the ability to leave when they wanted, to wherever they wanted to go. James R. Grossman contends that "Most ex-slaves traveled only short distances...to prove to themselves and their former masters that they now controlled their own labor and their own family life; the act of moving constituted a test of the meaning of emancipation."4 These were the baby steps that a toddler movement took. The adolescent leaps lay in the actual relocation to a new land--a land of opportunity in the north; migration.
The push of migration, clearly, was the history of Black oppression in the south coupled with the lack of acceptance of Black emancipation by the racist White infrastructure. Instead of abandoning all forms of slavery and brutality, the south merely sneaked around the laws and continued to maintain a relationship of fear with its former slaves. Grossman argues that "Living in a society that sought to render them as dependent and powerless as possible, they acquired a new source of power over their lives information that a better alternative not only existed but beckoned. They used the information and the network to plan and execute the process of their migration north, as well as to determine their destination."5
The pull of migration was opportunity itself. Grossman states that "Analysts who examined the appeal of the north the pull forces also compiled innumerable lists, citing high wages, equality, bright lights, privileges, good schools, and other attractions describing the obverse of what the migrants were fleeing in the south."6 These pull and push forces were the culminating influences that set the foundation for a mass movement.
Similar to the northern migration to large cities such as Chicago, a westward migration was also taking place. Shirley Ann Wilson Moore states that "The push of racial violence and poverty and the pull of California's reputation for freedom and economic opportunity were important factors in black migration to Richmond."7
Hence, migration was a viable factor for the advancement of African-Americans in their nascent freedom. Whether it be north or west, a Black consciousness was assembling itself en masse.
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The Impact of Urbanization
Once the mass movement of migration had taken form, large northern cities became the new epicenters for African-American opportunity. In the urban environment, there was the safety of having jobs that paid for labor in factories, instead of having to depend on market forces dictating how much a crop was worth; this in turn determined if there was going to be enough money to get out of debt in the sharecropper system. In addition to having jobs that allowed more fluidity of income, there was also better selection in job opportunities. If a person felt that their job was demeaning, or if they felt that they could do better, they simply switched jobs. In the south, once you were in a position (such as a tenant farmer), you were usually there for a period of time that had little allowance for absence. Ann Petry illustrates the new freedom of employment opportunities in her story In Darkness and Confusion: 'How can you expect to keep a job when you don't show up half the time?. . .I can always get another one.'8
Chicago was one of the large urban centers that attracted migrating Blacks who sought opportunity from an oppressive south. Grossman points out that 'The great migration both constituted a stage in the long-term process of African-American urbanization and accelerated a northward trend that had begun in the 1890's. Urbanization had started before the guns of the civil war had quieted and has continued into the 1980's.'9 Chicago was a new land for African-Americans to be people, albeit still in social bondage, but nonetheless more able to become whole citizens.
As late as the second world war era, urbanization was still a factor in migration away from rural areas. Moore emphasizes that 'The introduction of the mechanical cotton picker in 1944 pushed thousands of black sharecroppers and tenant farmers off southern plantations and into the urban industrial marketplace.'10 I will discuss wartime influences in more detail a little later.
African-Americans had a new presence in the sheer number of workers that they represented in northern (and western) urban centers. Although they were not yet completely in the position to assert their destiny, they were certainly in a position to defend themselves (en masse) against the circumstances that dominated their existence in the south.
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The Impact of Industrialization
The latent power of industrialization lay in wages; with money, a Black sub-economy could be established, and Black workers could start to build themselves up into an economic force that must be reckoned with by the White infrastructure. Moore states that 'For the majority of African-American workers the simple act of receiving a weekly paycheck became the most tangible evidence of black achievement, even though some required an initial period of orientation to the industrial wage system.'11
Factories were prominent in urban areas, especially during the wartime boom years. Grossman emphasizes that '. . . factory jobs were what most migrants expected to secure upon arrival.'12 In Richmond, Moore points out that 'At the peak of shipyard production, blacks comprised twenty percent of the labor force in the Richmond yards.'13
But not all was well. There was still rampant discrimination against Black workers. White unions banned skilled Black labor, and there were men and women with college education doing the most menial of labor. The feeling of the time was very much like Claude McKay's poem 'The White House':
"Your door is shut against my tightened face, and I am sharp as steel with discontent; but I possess the courage and the grace to bear my anger proudly and unbent. . . I must search for wisdom every hour, deep in my wrathful bosom sore and raw, and find in it the superhuman power to hold me to the letter of your law! Oh, I must keep my heart inviolate against the potent poison of your hate." 14
But the Black psyche forged ahead. Times were better than before, no matter what turmoil was at hand. Alain Locke asserts that the time was now for a new paradigm for African-Americans; 'He now becomes a conscious contributor and lays aside the status of a beneficiary and ward for that of a collaborator and participant in American civilization.'15
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The Impact of the World Wars
With the war eras, there were industrial employment opportunities for disenfranchised African-American workers. In Richmond, as Moore states, 'The coming of the Kaiser shipyards was the most visible symbol of the war in Richmond. Shipyard work offered African-Americans an economic shift upward. . .'16 Darlene C. Hine, et al., argues that 'The war accelerated the migration of African-Americans from rural areas to the cities. Even though the farm economy recovered during the (second world) war, the lure of high-paying defense jobs and other urban occupations tempted many Black farmers to abandon their land.'17 In addition to that, the government helped out with legislation (executive order #8802) banning discrimination in government and defense industry work.18
Overall, African-American opportunity looked better as a result of the second world war than from the first. The large industrial complexes combined with the anti-discrimination legislation of executive order #8802 gave Black workers the opportunity to continue as post-war skilled workers. Prior to this, as Malcolm X argues in his autobiography,'In 1935, in Lansing, Negroes didn't have anything you could call a profession.'19
The wars of the early twentieth century allowed African-American soldiers, once again, to prove that they were as worthy, brave, and dignified as their White brethren. During the first world war, Hine, et al., state that '. . . black people sought to demonstrate their loyalty and devotion to the country through military service. If this is 'our' country, declared W.E.B. Dubois, then this is 'our' war. We must fight it with every ounce of blood and treasure.'20 However, the going was slow and difficult. Black soldiers were mostly used in secondary roles such as cooks, bakers, stevedores, waiters, stokers, etc.21, and the opportunity for Black soldiers to become officers, although present, was kept in the lower echelons--no higher than Captain.22 However, given the chance, Black soldiers were magnificent. In France, they more than proved their mettle in front of the whole world.23
The impact of the world wars gave momentum to the advancement of African-American social equality and general acceptance. Although the situation was not ideal, there were many improvements as a result of the war years. W.E.B. Dubois wrote in The Crisis that 'We return, we return from fighting, we return fighting.'24 Dubois, in his essay The Souls of Black Folk, passionately asked the question that is rarely answered:
"Actively we have woven ourselves with the very warp and woof of this nation--we fought their battles, shared their sorrow, mingled our blood with theirs, and generation after generation have pleaded with a headstrong and careless people to despise not justice, mercy, and truth, lest the nation be smitten with a curse...Would America have been America without her Negro people? 25
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Concluding Thoughts
The quest for social justice and equality in the African-American experience has survived such catastrophic events as slavery, genocide, cultural murder, and a dominant society that takes pride in subjugation. As a result of emancipation, the potential force that would soon be realized--upward mobility--would find itself unleashed inside the vehicle of migration. It was in this mass movement, the great migration north, that African-American potential was realized. No longer a subjugated possession, but a skilled worker. No longer an economic slave, but a tax-paying, voting, product-purchasing consumer. No longer a social scourge to Whites, but a new neighbor--an influence to many, and a role model to oppressed peoples.
Although trials still lay ahead, the new urban, industrial Black citizen was finally able to confront any hazard on both feet--firmly planted in the soil, and not as a subjugated human vessel--crawling and unable to rise erect.
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Notes
1. W.E.B. Dubois,'A Litany in Atlanta', in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 362.
2. Richard Wright,'The Ethics of Living Jim Crow: An Autobiographical Sketch', in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 298.
3. James R. Grossman, 'Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the Great Migration' (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1989), 19.
4. Grossman, 21.
5. Grossman, 97.
6. Grossman, 18.
7. Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, 'To Place Our Deeds: The African American Community in Richmond, California, 1910-1963' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 17.
8. Ann Petry,"In Darkness and Confusion, in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 164.
9. Grossman, 19.
10. Moore, 49.
11. Moore, 66.
12. Grossman, 181.
13. Moore, 42.
14. Claude McKay,'The White House', in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 375.
15. Alain Locke,'The New Negro', in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 523.
16. Moore, 40.
17. Darlene Clark Hine, William C. Hine, and Stanley Harrold, 'The African-American Odyssey' (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2000), 482.
18. Hine, et al., 475.
19. Malcolm X,"The Autobiography of Malcolm X," in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 343.
20. Hine, et al., 376.
21. ibid.
22. ibid.
23. Hine, et al., 378.
24. ibid.
25. W.E.B. Dubois,"The Souls of Black Folk," in 'Black Voices: An Anthology of Afro-American Literature', ed. Abraham Chapman (New York: Mentor, 1968), 509-510.
Music selection: EXODUS
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