In 1900, about 90 percent of Black Americans lived in the South. By 1970, about 53 percent did. Migrants moved to cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Oakland. Black newspapers such as the Chicago Defender encouraged the move, and labor shortages during the two World Wars opened factory jobs.
Migrants did not escape racism. They met redlining, restrictive covenants, job discrimination and white mob violence, including the Chicago race riot of 1919. Many were confined to overcrowded neighborhoods that later faced urban renewal and disinvestment.
The migration built political power and culture in the North, from the Harlem Renaissance to Chicago blues to the election of Black officials. The journalist Isabel Wilkerson told its story in The Warmth of Other Suns in 2010. Since the 1970s, a reverse movement has brought many Black Americans back to Southern cities such as Atlanta, Houston and Charlotte.