Migration has been one of the ongoing themes of American history. Native Americans migrated to the Americas long before recorded history. From Columbus on, large groups of Spanish, English, and other Europeans began to arrive in the U.S. and the rest of the Americas (as did African slaves-- involuntary immigrants). Later immigrants came from many more European nations, as well as from Asia and Latin America. In the 19th century, many pioneers headed west to find land and opportunity.

Those are well-known stories. But the big American migration of the early and mid-20th century is sometimes overlooked. During and after the First and Second World Wars, large numbers of southern blacks migrated north and west, drawn by war-time jobs and the hope of a less restrictive life. The Great Migration forever changed American cities and society. It revealed new talents and opportunities as well as different forms of discrimination-- and problems we are still wrestling with, fifty years later.

It was difficult to choose the best articles to suggest because each is excellent in its own way. If you have time for a very long article, the individual stories told in the Smithsonian article on the Long-lasting Legacy of the Great Migration are worth reading. It provides an in-depth understanding of the reasons for the Great Migration and the ways it has shaped American culture.

This TED talk also makes the Great Migration come to life. (It's by the same journalist as the Smithsonian article, Isabel Wilkerson. She wrote THE book on the Great Migration-- the one all the articles refer to.) If you don't have time for the Smithsonian article, it provides a clear understanding of the causes and effects of the migration.

If you prefer getting your information from a podcast while you jog or commute, NPR has a 25-minute interview with Wilkerson (with some written highlights), specifically discussing her book and the research she did for it. What's interesting to me is that each of her talks or articles has a different emphasis and mentions different stories.

Finally, if you're interested in geography, sociology, and numbers, Priceonomics includes a good map and several census data tables (listing black migration to various cities for both the first and second waves of the Great Migration) along with its discussion of the migration.