During the Great Migration, African Americans left their southern homes and headed north to start a new life. Although this movement was considered a triumph by most of the black community, it was not seen as positive by the Southern white community. The majority of white Southerners had a negative response to the participation of African Americans in the Great Migration. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay From my previous knowledge, I know that African Americans left the South for many reasons. The South was a dangerous place for African Americans during this time, and the North offered a more hospitable environment. In the north, there were far fewer lynchings, beatings, and discrimination than in the south. With the departure of African Americans to the north in large numbers, white southerners lost a race over which they had dominant control. Additionally, employment was growing rapidly in the North, and African Americans in the South wanted to take advantage of jobs that paid better and did not include work in the fields. This movement of African Americans northward led to a shrinking labor force in the South. Labor agents came to southern communities to recruit African Americans to come work for them in the north. With the promise of higher pay and a less hostile environment, the offer seemed more than attractive to most African Americans. White Southerners who held political power and police officers harassed these labor agents and interested African Americans, lest their workforce begin to dwindle. In my opinion, I find this reaction from white southerners strange. While I understand they didn't want to lose their workforce, I think at that point they would realize how biased their system was. The majority of labor-intensive jobs were held by African Americans for low pay. I think white Southerners could have realized how unfair this was. Besides, it would have been time for them to realize how horrible they were treating African Americans. Why would a person want to live in a place where they are not accepted as a human being and are in constant fear for their life? But mean-spirited white Southerners had such a distorted view of African Americans living in the South with them that they were never able to see that point of view. African Americans knew that by moving north, they could start a new and better life. They could be trained in fields other than agriculture or personal service. And for those who couldn't afford to bring their families with them, they could use their new job to send them money, and even bring them over once they were in a financially stable state. This encouraging idea was considered an unacceptable action by white Southerners, considering that they only wanted African Americans to stay just so they could continue to work for them, for little or no pay. For example, the cotton industry was popular in the South and was labor intensive. This required many hours of work and proper care. During America's period of slavery, during the Great Migration, the cotton industry employed primarily African Americans to perform work that was too arduous for southern whites. With the Great Migration underway. Southern whites were angry and fearfullest their workforce in industries like this be diminished. The Great Migration opened new opportunities for African Americans living in the South and gave them a chance at true happiness. As African Americans slowly moved into the Northern states, white Southerners saw a possible collapse of their economies. White Southerners did everything in their power to prevent southern African Americans from leaving for better lives and to keep them trapped in the South, doing hard and unjust labor. a high fever. “They left as if they were fleeing a curse (Wilkerson 8).” It would become perhaps the most overlooked story of the 20th century. It was vast. It was leaderless. It slipped along so many thousands of currents over such a long period of time that it was difficult for the press to really capture it while it was underway. Historians would come to call it the Great Migration. (Wilkerson 9) The Great Migration or better said, the beginning of a new beginning was an event that happened in the 19th century where African Americans moved from the South to the North after World War I. After reading the first part of The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson I was able to answer: What were the main economic, social and historical forces that triggered the Great Migration? Why did black people leave in such large numbers between 1915 and 1970? After reading the chapter The Great Migration, 1915-1970 and doing some research, I believe that job opportunities, unjust legal systems, lynching, and education sparked the Great Migration. In the chapter The Great Migration, 1915-1970, Wilkerson explains how the Southern legal system. Based on the description in this chapter, this leads me to believe that this is one of the reasons black people left the south due to an unjust legal system. She talks about Jim Crow laws and how every stage of African Americans' lives was controlled by laws as such. Another form of unjust legal system was also presented in the case of slavery by another video titled on PBS. After the end of the Emancipation Proclamation, a law that states that all people held as slaves "in the Rebel States" are and will henceforth be free. "Due to the legal system, free slaves were taken prisoner and sent back to technical prison. Job opportunities are another reason why I believe African Americans migrated from the South to the North. After As World War I jobs became available in the North, African Americans saw this as a new start. They no longer wanted to be sharecroppers or farm laborers, etc. As mentioned in the book. , African Americans picked up and left the tobacco farms of Virginia, the rice plantations of South Carolina, the cotton fields of eastern Texas and Mississippi, and the villages and forests of other states in the South World War I required workers in Northern factories to leave states such as those mentioned above and many others, then head to cities like New York, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. many more for better job opportunities. In our homes, in our churches, wherever two or three people come together, we discuss what is best to do. Should we stay in the South or go elsewhere? Where can we go to feel that security that others feel? Is it better to go in large numbers or just in several families? These things and many other things are.