(Motown music)
- [Narrator] It's
one of the most
overlooked stories
of American history.
And it features one
very big number.
- Six million.
- Six million.
- Six million.
- [Narrator] That's the
number of African Americans
who took part in
the great migration.
Over the course of 60 years
they moved from the southern
states to The North and West.
And by doing so, they
transformed the face of America.
- What really changed the
whole notion of our nation.
- Let every mountain and-
- It led to some of
the greatest cultural,
social, and political progress.
- [Narrator] From the
civil rights movement,
to Black Lives Matter, from
politics to sport and music,
the great migration continues
to influence all our lives.
- When we think
about the way we eat,
live, dress, play,
worship in America,
so much of as a product
of the great migration.
- [Narrator] This is the story
of 44 presidents of
the United States,
800 home runs, four
frightened teenagers,
and the hopes, fears, and dreams
of six million African
Americans who risked everything
to take part in the
great migration.
(rock and roll music)
(train whistle blowing)
(blues music)
- The great migration
is this massive
exodus of African
American people from
the US South to The
North and the West
that transformed the literal
landscape of American life.
It's a collection
of six million plus
individual experiences,
individual courageous stories.
- [Narrator] Between
1915 and 1975
they followed the railroads
up the East Coast,
west to California, and
along the Mississippi Valley
to cities like Chicago.
- The promised land, that's
how The North was thought of.
- [Narrator] And one of
the promises that was kept
is the number 44, a
small number that reveals
the far reaching consequences
of the great migration.
Chicago's Bud Billiken
Parade is a celebration
of African American
youth in culture.
Watched by over
one million people,
it's the largest African
American parade in the country.
- The Bud Billiken Parade
is a celebration that goes
up and down the spine of the
black community in Chicago.
It's song, it's dance,
it's public displays of black
excellence and community.
- [Narrator] And it happens
every year for nearly a century,
because of the great migration.
100 years ago, the African
American population of Chicago
numbered just 44,103,
or less than 3%
of the city's total population.
Today, that number
is more like 800,000.
If you're an
aspiring politician,
the Bud Billiken Parade
is where you come
to shake as many hands
as you possibly can.
- In 2007, Barack Obama was
this young Senator
based in Chicago.
And he understood to
gain the endorsement,
not just of Chicago's
black community,
but also black America,
he has to receive
the official nod at the
Bud Billiken Parade.
- [Narrator] The parade
marks the start of his
successful bid to become
President of the United States.
- When we think about the
number 44, and Barack Obama
becoming the 44th President
of the United States,
it's amazing that we have
this African American first.
- [Narrator] It's
an American first
that's possible because
Chicago isn't unique.
What happens here is repeated
in cities across
the United States.
At the start of
the 20th century,
90% of African Americans
live in The South.
But in the cities of
The North and West,
African American
populations increase
as a direct result of the
great migration until,
by the 1970s, 47%
live in The North.
- I can't imagine a
Barack Obama in 2008
without a great migration.
I think the great migration
is absolutely foundational
to our understanding of progress
for black people in this nation.
- [Narrator] So how and why
does such a transformation
of American politics
and society occur?
It culminates with a 44,
but begins with a four.
It's Chicago, 1905.
And Robert Sengstacke Abbott
is running out of options.
- He came to Chicago
to be a lawyer.
Couldn't do well, couldn't
establish a clientele.
- [Narrator] So he
applies for other jobs,
and is passed over for
white European immigrants.
When he's desperate, and hungry,
and in a church's bread line,
he's told to stand
aside for the white guy.
- He struggled to
gain a foothold.
He kept hitting roadblocks.
People said he was too dark.
- [Narrator] Down to
his last 25 cents.
he gambles it all on one big
idea, a pencil, and a notepad.
- He is at his land
lady's kitchen table.
He sat down and he put
together a four page newspaper
that would become
The Chicago Defender.
- [Narrator] It starts with a
print run of just 300 copies.
He goes door to door
in Chicago's south side
selling his newspaper
in barber shops
and churches for
two cents a copy.
And The Chicago Defender
becomes an instant hit.
- There were other
African American papers
in Chicago at the time.
His paper was just one of many.
But what he did that
distinguished him,
was he understood
the power of talking about
progress for African Americans,
and equality for
African Americans.
- The Chicago Defender is
the most significant
African American newspaper,
and I would argue
the most significant
piece of journalism in the
history of the American press.
- [Narrator] Within a decade,
The Chicago Defender
becomes the biggest selling
African American newspaper
in the entire country,
selling over 100,000 copies.
It's estimated that
every weekly edition
is passed on to five readers,
making a total readership
of over half a million,
50% of whom aren't
even in Chicago.
- The Chicago Defender
becomes the vehicle,
the organ, the voice of
beckoning African Americans
to come from south to north.
- Robert Abbott started
to say, come to Chicago.
Chicago's the best
place in the world.
He talked about all the
jobs, all the opportunities.
He talked about the ways
in which you could advance,
and have education
for your children.
- When people wanted to
understand life in The North,
they would have a young person
sit in a community of elders
who might not have
access to literacy.
And they would read the
paper to the community.
- This newspaper from a big
city, created an excitement.
It engendered a thought that
ooh, I could make life better.
- [Keneshia] The paper
is wildly successful,
and is read all over
the United States.
In some ways it operates like
social media operates today.
- [Narrator] The Chicago
Defender becomes a catalyst
for the first wave of
the great migration
in the first half
of the 20th century,
because suddenly every
African American family
in The South has a choice
to make, stay or go.
- Black people don't randomly
choose to leave The South
during the great migration,
they move through
what we call push
factors and pull factors.
- [Narrator] In this first wave,
many will be pushed from
The South by the legacy
of broken promises
of the Civil w*r,
including the number 40,
a slippery and
treacherous number.
(guitar music)
For nearly two and a half
centuries after the coming
of European settlers,
sl*very had been at the heart
of the plantation economy
of the southern states.
By the middle of the 19th
century, close to four million
African Americans were
enslaved representing 13%
of the entire population
of the United States.
The market value of sl*ves in
the US exceeded that of banks,
factories, and
railroads combined.
But with the defeat
of the southern states
in the Civil w*r,
sl*very was not only
abolished, 40,000 freed sl*ves
were promised 40
acres and a mule.
- 40 acres in a mule is the
idea that the federal government
would help enslaved
people transition
into American society.
- A lot plots, so that
coming out of bondage,
we can till our our own soil,
we can grow our own crops.
We can be self-sustainable,
self-determining.
- [Narrator] But when
president Abraham Lincoln
is assassinated, and
former sl*ve owner,
Andrew Johnson, becomes
president, the idea is shelved.
- He shut down this
amazing opportunity
for political and
economic redistribution.
- [Narrator] By some estimates,
the value of 40 acres
and a mule for those
40,000 freed sl*ves
would be worth
640 billion dollars today.
And if all four million
had been compensated,
that number would
amount to 6.4 trillion.
- The lost opportunity,
and the betrayal
is one of the key threads
in the current conditions
of wealth disparity in
our country to this day,
that directly exist
along racial lines.
- [Narrator] But one
broken presidential promise
isn't the only push factor
in the first wave of
the great migration.
Eight Supreme court justices
will also play their part.
For a brief period after
the end of the Civil w*r,
the era known as Reconstruction,
it seems that all you have
to do is pick a number.
- The Reconstruction era
was this amazing moment
of collective possibility,
and not just for black folk,
but for everyone.
- [Narrator] Take, for
example, the number 13.
- The 13th amendment
abolished sl*very.
- [Narrator] Or the number 14.
- If you are born here, you
are a citizen of United States.
- So we have a period from
1865 to basically 1876,
where African Americans
are protected in The South
from the hostility and
terror of the whites.
- This country was
founded as a sl*ve nation.
And so the
reconstruction amendment
was something entirely new,
an American Republic not
governed by white supremacy.
You have this political project
of what America
could actually be.
This was a moment where
inter marriage was legal.
Integration of public facilities
and schools was legal.
But to quote the great
writer, Ralph Ellison,
history moves more like a
boomerang than it does in arrow.
- [Narrator] Reconstruction
lasts just 12 years.
When federal troops are on from
the southern states in 1877,
the era of Jim Crow begins,
and will last another 90 years.
- Jim Crow is a system of
laws that create a separate,
parallel, in many instances
unequal life for black people,
so that white people,
who now have to
interact with them,
because they are freed
from enslavement,
have to do so in the
minimal possible way.
- If you were on a street
car, if a white person
wanted to sit down, you
had to get up and move.
- Black children
and white children
attend different schools.
- [Michael] There are
different fountains
to drink out of if
you're black or white.
- I heard stories of
walking down a sidewalk.
And if a white person was
walking the other way,
of a black person having
to get in the dirty street.
The daily indignities
of black women
working in white
women's kitchens,
being mistreated, wages being
stolen, and then sometimes
having to beat back the advances
of the man of the house.
And facing sexual
violence, sometimes r*pe.
These were the daily conditions
of dehumanization,
mistreatment, terror
that African Americans
face on a daily basis.
- [Narrator] It turns out that
the 13th and 14th amendments
are no match for
the number eight.
It's Tuesday, June 7th, 1892.
Homer Plessy, a New
Orleans shoemaker,
is having trouble
with a fraction.
He buys a first class
ticket on the 4:15 Louisiana
local train, and takes a
seat in the whites only car.
- Homer Plessy is a person
who, if you saw him,
you would think he
was a white person.
- His great-grandfather
was of African descent.
So he was considered
one eighth n*gro.
He had black blood.
- Based on the laws
of this country,
the One Drop Rule, he
was a black person.
- And he understood
the preposterousness
of segregated train lines
based on black and white blood.
- So he wanted to test the laws.
- He sits on the train.
And then at one point
during the trip,
he stands up and
tells the conductor,
I am one eighth n*gro,
and I'm not moving.
And so at this point,
according to law,
they had to remove
him from the train.
And they arrested him.
His legal team argued,
rightfully, that
this Jim Crow system
violated the 13th
and 14th amendments
of The Constitution
of the United States.
- And the thought was
that this case will lead
to the opening of
transportation for black people
to be able to sit
wherever they want to,
on trains, on trolleys, in
buses, and things like that.
But it backfired.
- [Narrator] The case goes
all the way to the top,
where Homer's number
eight will prove no match
for eight of the
Supreme Court justices.
- In 1896, it comes
to the Supreme Court,
and the Supreme Court
shocks lots of people.
They decide that there should be
separate but equal facilities.
And it's okay. You
don't have to integrate.
- It turns local Jim Crow
into the law of the land.
We become not a Jim Crow
South, but a Jim Crow nation.
- No one could imagine
the Supreme Court
would be so retrograde,
and ridiculous.
- [Narrator] But it isn't
just the Jim Crow laws
that target African
Americans, it's also violence.
And for Ida B. Wells,
the greatest push
factor of them all,
will be the number 4,743.
The granddaughter of a sl*ve,
Ida is a five at
Memphis powerhouse who
can't stand idly by.
She says, "One had better
die fighting injustice
than die like a dog,
or a rat in a trap."
- A true heroine of American
history is Ida B. Wells.
- [Narrator] When she's
dragged off a train
for refusing to give up
her seat to a white woman,
she goes one better
than Homer Plessy.
Not only does she slap a
lawsuit on the railroad company,
she bites into the back
of the conductor's hand.
And for good measure,
she denounces the
injustice in print.
- She becomes a journalist.
And she befriends a
guy named Thomas Moss,
who has a store called
The Peoples Grocery Store.
He's African American.
And his store is
very successful.
- [Narrator] But a dispute
breaks out with a rival,
less successful,
white owned store.
- The sheriff went
into the grocery store,
and arrested three
African American males.
One of them was Mr. Moss.
But then the police
officers and the sheriff
looked the other
way as a l*nch m*b
grabbed these three
African American men,
took them outta jail cell,
and lynched them to death,
m*rder*d them without trial.
- And when Ida B. Wells hears
about this she's infuriated.
She just can't believe
that this would happen
to a fine upstanding person.
- [Narrator] Believing the
only way to write wrongs
is to turn the light
of truth upon them,
she spends the following months
traveling alone across
the southern states,
researching other lynchings
from the previous decade.
- This is an amazing
fire brand of a woman,
breaking down by boundaries as
not just an African American,
but also as a woman,
traveled across the country
in dangerous terrain
and territories,
where she herself could
have been lynched.
- [Narrator] So she carries
a p*stol in her handbag,
vowing that if she
becomes a victim herself,
there'll be one less
lyncher as well.
First revealed by Ida B. Wells,
the scale of violence against
African Americans is shocking.
It's now estimated that
between 1882 and 1968,
4,743 African
Americans were lynched.
Or put another way, there was
one m*rder every four days.
Of the tens of thousands
of lynchers and onlookers,
only 49 are ever indicted,
and only four are sentenced.
During the same period,
nearly 200 anti-lynching bills
are introduced to
Congress, and zero pass.
But no number can truly
convey the human tragedy
of so many innocent
lives lost, together with
the hopes and dreams of
thousands of African Americans.
When her own office is fire
bombed for revealing the truth,
Ida B. Wells will herself
join the great migration.
Pushed from The South by
segregation and violence,
pulled to The North by hopes
of freedom and a better life.
- The great migration
was understood as a
religious revival.
It wasn't just called leaving.
People called it an
Exodus from Dixie,
heading to America's
promise land.
- [Narrator] In the first
wave of the great migration,
between 1915 and 1935,
one and a half million
African Americans will leave
Dixie, including one little boy
who will stun the world
with the number 10.3.
It's 1923, Alabama.
James Cleveland, or
JC to his friends,
is the 10th child of
a poor sharecropper
who spent most of his nine years
running barefoot through
the cotton fields.
But tonight is different.
He's packing up his life to
move North with his family.
He notices his dad's hands
are shaking with fright.
And for the first time in
his life, little JC realizes
this move is going to be
a very big deal indeed.
- This was a Herculean feet,
to leave everything you knew,
and go to a new
place of existence.
The ultimate goal was freedom,
but there were no guarantees.
They knew the terror and the
dehumanization they faced.
And the freedom that could
be had in the urban North
was unknown, and yet they
still took this leap of faith.
- [Narrator] JCs
family leave their home
in secret in the
middle of the night.
- Deciding to go
North is one thing,
getting to The North is a
whole different challenge.
- The great migration
is usually talked about
from the perspective of
the movement for a
different lifestyle,
opportunities, chances, jobs.
But there was also a
component of danger.
They could face threats on
the part of white planters,
who they were leaving.
So in many cases, African
Americans would leave at night,
when no one was watching.
When African Americans
got on board the train,
this was just the
beginning of the battle.
- African Americans
who traveled by train
were pushed in certain cars.
Usually the car's at
the front of the train,
which is where you get all
the soot, all the cinders.
African Americans
weren't allowed
to go into the dining cars.
- And this became a part of
the African American tradition.
They would take a shoebox,
and fill it with fried
chicken and other snacks.
Because they wouldn't be able
to get food from the dining car.
They might not be able
to use the restroom.
- [Narrator] JC and his
family had head north
on the Illinois
Central Railroad,
along with thousands of
other African Americans
from The South who
are seeking a new life
in cities like Chicago,
Detroit, and Cleveland.
- When they got
to The Ohio River,
the unspoken divide
between Jim Crow South
and a different North,
it was almost like a
religious experience.
In some cases, African
Americans would stand up
and begin to sing hymns,
and praise hallelujah.
We have crossed over into
a new world, a new life.
Some African Americans
would get up,
and just because they could,
would sit next to a white person
to show that they had
become a different person,
that we are entering a
different way of life.
- [Narrator] But when they
arrive in The North, what then?
- You get off the train, and
you're trying to figure out.
Where do I go? What do I do?
Do I have relatives here?
How do I go forward?
It must have been a really,
really disorienting experience.
And at the same time,
one of incredible
hope and opportunity.
- [Narrator] For JC,
it means a new school
in Cleveland, Ohio.
The elementary teacher will
ask his name. JC, he replies.
But the teacher,
not understanding
his Southern accent,
thinks he says Jesse.
So that's the name she
writes in the role book.
The name sticks, and that's
how he'll be known to history
as Jesse, Jesse Owens.
- Before there was Usain Bolt,
before there was Carl Lewis,
there was Jesse Owens,
an African American
track phenomenon.
Because of the great migration,
and his relocation to Cleveland,
he's able to take his
skills as a track athlete,
and run for Ohio
State University,
ultimately joining
the Olympic team
that would go to Berlin in 1936.
- And this is the
era of Adolph Hitler,
who has proclaimed that the
white race is the supreme race.
- [Narrator] Jesse Owens will
put his own stamp on history
by winning the 100 meter
at the Berlin Olympics,
in a time of precisely
10.3 seconds.
- He wins the gold medal
in not only the 100,
and the 200, but
the four by 100,
and the long jump, a four time
gold medal winner in 1936.
But when Jesse Owens came
back from the Olympics
to be feted and celebrated
at the Waldorf Hotel
in New York City,
because Jesse Owens was
black, he had to enter
the celebration through
the service elevator.
Celebrated, and yet
still relegated.
- Even today, we
celebrate black athletes.
But once they leave
the athletic arena,
they still receive the same
racism and the same mistreatment
and the same attacks
as anybody else would.
- [Narrator] As Jesse
Owens famously points out,
Hitler won't shake his hand,
but neither will
the US President,
Franklin D. Roosevelt.
JC is part of the first
wave of the great migration.
It's a trickle that
will become a flood.
Before the great depression,
over one million people join
him in the journey north.
And in this second wave,
which begins in the '40s
and lasts till the '70s,
five times as many people
will leave The South.
- In some ways African
Americans found
in the Urban North,
a promised land.
And in other ways,
they found variations
on the same conditions
they had just left.
Malcolm X loved to say
The South is anywhere
south of the Canadian border.
- [Narrator] One young family
seeking the promised land
arrived to find 4,000
angry white guys instead.
In 1949, Harvey Clark,
a World w*r II veteran,
and college graduate,
joins the second wave
of the great migration, taking
the Illinois Central Railroad
north from Mississippi
to Chicago.
For two years, he lives
with his wife Johnetta
and his two small kids in
a tiny one room tenement
in Chicago's south side.
It's so small, there
isn't room for the piano
he's bought for his
eight year old daughter.
So he decides to move somewhere
bigger, and he hopes better.
- The year is 1951.
There is
a apartment complex in the
white community of Cicero.
And Harvey Clark and his
family want to move in.
They begin to drive
into this neighborhood,
and they are immediately
met by white residents
who stop and halt the truck.
These white residents are
joined by police officers,
those sworn to protect the
law equitably for everyone.
- [Narrator] Harvey is
grabbed by 20 police officers.
He's hit eight times, and he's
told to get out of Cicero,
or you'll get a
b*llet through you.
Harvey is undeterred.
A month later, he,
his wife, two kids,
and all his possessions,
including the piano,
move into their new apartment.
- Word circulates.
This n*gro family is in
this apartment building.
Groups of white individuals
begin to congregate around
the apartment complex.
Ultimately, we have a mob
of 4,000 an angry whites
that surround the complex,
and they're whipped up
into an animalistic frenzy.
Men and women throw fire bombs
into the windows
of the building.
The entire apartment
building is on fire.
- [Narrator] The mob
storms the apartment,
and they hurl the family's
belongings out the window,
the sofa, the chairs,
the baby pictures.
They smash the piano
and set it alight.
- The reality is white,
monstrous resistance
to coexistence.
How dare you demonstrate
that you can be equal to me?
That you can live where I live?
That you can do what I do,
and do things that I can't do?
This was an arrogance,
and a fear, and a mistrust
that could incite my violence
like that that happened
on that day and evening
in Cicero in 1951.
- [Narrator] Because
of zoning regulations,
and white resistance,
many US suburbs will
remain segregated.
50 years later, the 2000
US census will reveal
that of Cicero's population
of 85,616, only 1% are black.
The great migration will
prove an irresistible force
that will reconfigure the
geography and color of America.
But it's more than just
the movement of people.
Because with new people comes
new music, and a new top 10,
or to be precise 79 top tens.
- All of today's popular
music, whether it be hiphop,
or the pop sound of a Bruno
Mars, or a Taylor Swift,
it is directly linked
to the musical tracks
along the path of
the great migration.
- This migration
brings to The North,
all these different sounds.
Gospel music, which is
the music of the church.
And then Muddy Waters comes
up from the Mississippi Delta,
a guy who's gonna
give us the blues.
And Louis Armstrong comes
up from new Orleans,
up the Mississippi River,
bringing with him
the sounds of jazz.
Where he plays a trumpet
that is so revolutionary,
and so different, it changes
the way we think about music.
- [Narrator] Both
Harlem and Chicago
will experience a
cultural renaissance.
Detroit, on the other hand,
will have the number 2,648.
It's the 1950s.
Just like tens of
thousands of other
African American families,
Berry Gordy's has joined
the great migration and
come to The Motor City.
- Gordy's family moves
to The North, looking for
the opportunities provided
by industrial employment,
especially in a
place like Detroit,
and particularly the
automotive industries.
- He gets married, has
a wife, he has a child.
And he goes to
work in a factory.
And he hates it.
- [Narrator] He has another
30 years ahead of him
watching slow moving
car frames trundle past.
- But he comes up with this
idea. He wants to write music.
- [Narrator] He dreams of
starting up his own factory,
a hits factory.
So he hangs up his wrench,
and he quits his job.
- He buys a house at 2648
West Grand Boulevard,
and he calls it Hitsville, USA.
And the idea is, he's
gonna turn the garage
and the first floor into studio,
a place where he can make music.
And he and his family
are gonna live upstairs.
- He wants to capture
the wealth and the spirit
of black music that's
developing in this
migration city of
Detroit, and protect it
from being exploited by white
record company executives.
He creates an
assembly line approach
to churning out black
talent in his Motown stable.
He controls their
production, their dress,
their dance steps, their
diction, their interviews,
presenting a refined
black popular sound
that could be palatable
to the white world.
- [Narrator] And Motown is born.
- I think back to the founder
of The Chicago Defender
and his 25 cents,
starting with very little.
And Berry Gordy's
little indie company
becomes a major, major
record label, basically
with an $800 loan
from his family.
The Supremes, The
Miracle, Stevie Wonder,
The Temptations, Marvin Gaye,
Martha and the Vandellas.
He created a company
that catapulted
many, many young
artists into stardom.
- [Narrator] Between 1960
and 1969, 79 Motown records
will chart in the top 10
of the Billboard Hot 100.
And pop music is
changed forever.
- That's what Berry
Gordy was all about.
I want to be part of
the American mainstream.
His motto is, it's the
sound of young America.
And that's what Motown was.
- [Narrator] It isn't only
the genius of jazz and blues
that comes north with six
million African Americans.
They also bring the number 313.
In 1920, while many head north,
a young single mother
and her five children
board the freedom
train on an epic,
2000 mile journey from
Georgia to California.
The youngest ever
children is 16 months old.
His name is Jackie Robinson.
27 years later, he'll become
the first African American
to break the color barrier and
play major league baseball.
- Jackie Robinson, his
contribution on society,
absolutely incredible.
Everyone thinks Colin Kaepernick
was one of the first people
to oppose standing for the
Anthem for racial justice.
Jackie Robinson talked about
that in the '60s and '70s.
- [Narrator] Jackie
Robinson will end his career
with batting average of .313.
But sometimes the numbers,
and baseball stats,
can be deceiving.
Robinson begins his
professional career
segregated from white players.
- It was 1890.
The major white
leagues of the era
laid down this edict called
The Gentleman's Agreement,
that no major white baseball
league would ever integrate
individual black
players or black teams.
From this comes the emergence
of an independent
black baseball league.
Black baseball teams
and develop and grow
to the point where
people like Branch Ricky
of the Brooklyn Dodgers
saw the gate receipts
of regular n*gro league games
and said, you know what?
Wait a minute. I gotta
get a piece of that.
- [Narrator] He recruits
Jackie Robinson,
but not because of his stats.
- Jackie Robinson was not the
pride of The n*gro League.
So it wasn't that he
was the best player.
It was that he was the
right guy for the job,
somebody who they knew could
handle what this person
who broke the color line
would have to endure.
When you consider
that Jackie Robinson
was a lull of a player
in The n*gro Leagues,
and a superior player
in the white leagues,
that raised the
stakes on this story,
especially when you think about
a player like Josh Gibson.
He was reported to have
over 800 home runs
in The n*gro League.
- [Narrator] Jackie Robinson's
career batting average is .313.
Babe Ruth has an
average of .342.
Josh Gibson's is
even better, at .374.
- Josh Gibson was the n*gro
league's version of Babe Ruth.
At the same time, he had
better stats than Babe Ruth.
- In The n*gro Leagues,
they would call Babe Ruth,
the white Josh Gibson.
At the end of the day, the
story of Jackie Robinson,
and the African
Americans who followed,
is not one of poor black players
being rescued by the
benevolent white father.
This is a story of seeing the
value of The n*gro Leagues,
and trying to capitalize
on this independent
black enterprise
in a way that could benefit
the white major leagues.
- [Narrator] But it will
take more than one man's
batting average to break
down the color barrier.
As well as their
worldly possessions,
their music, and their
culture, the migrants
also brought with them
the possibility of change.
And in the struggle
for civil rights,
one thing that changes
forever is politics.
- One of the
important connections
between the great
migration and the modern
civil rights movement
is black American's
ability to get elected
political offices.
- After The Civil w*r, one
number above all others
holds out the
possibility of change.
- The 15th amendment, which
said you cannot be denied
the right to vote
based on your race.
- Black people start
organizing themselves.
They are able to vote.
And they elect people at
all levels of government.
- [Narrator] Between
1863 and 1877,
approximately 1,500
African American men,
many of whom are born
enslaved, become the first
black Americans elected
or appointed to positions
on the federal, state,
and local level.
14 are members of the
House of Representatives.
Two are Senators.
90% of African American men
registered to vote for
the very first time.
But it turns out that
for African Americans
living in the Jim Crow South,
their right to vote will be
taken away by made up rules,
like knowing the number of
bubbles in a bar of soap.
Take someone like
Ida Mae Brandon.
In the 1930s, she's a share
cropper rearing turkeys,
picking cotton, and struggling
to keep her two small
kids clothed and fed.
Despite the number 15,
it has never occurred to
her to vote in an election.
- The Jim Crow South has
organized itself so that
black people are discriminated
against in their politics.
One of the examples
is a literacy test,
where you go to
register to vote.
And the question could be
how many bubbles are
in a bar of soap?
There might be
intimidation that happens,
where members of the white
community hang dummies
by a noose, and have a sign
that says this N word voted.
As a way to suggest that if
you vote, you might be hanged.
- [Narrator] When Ida Mae
joins the great migration
and leaves Mississippi, she
finds herself in Chicago.
- Before the great migration,
it was very difficult
for black people to
participate in politics.
But the likelihood they could
participate in The North
was much greater than it
would be in The South.
- [Narrator] The 1940
presidential election
is the first time that Ida Mae
has ever stepped
into a voting booth.
And the first time in her life,
she has ever had a say
in political matters.
- The great migration
fundamentally reshapes
electorates in The North.
So politics is all
about who can vote,
how easy it is for them to vote,
and whether they actually
turn out to vote.
- Ida Mae's vote is one of
more than two million cast
for Franklin D, Roosevelt in
the swing state of Illinois.
And it's because of
the great migration
he's elected for a third term.
It's a historic election,
because under Roosevelt,
the US will enter World w*r II.
But for African Americans,
politics is a slippery game.
And having a vote proved
not nearly enough.
- In history books
and in popular memory,
we understand the civil
rights movement as being
primarily focused
on the US South,
battling with the peculiar
institution known as Jim Crow.
But as the migration
brought African Americans
into urban northern
and western cities,
the civil rights campaign
migrated and grew
at the same pace.
- [Narrator] In Greensboro,
in the southern state
of North Carolina,
it begins with the number four.
In February, 1960, a
group of teenage friends
have had enough and decide
to take matters into
their own hands.
History will know them
as the Greensboro Four.
- Protesting is as American
as American history.
Our founding fathers did it.
It's one of the 10 bill of
rights, the right to protest.
- [Narrator] It's an
ordinary Monday afternoon
in Greensboro, North Carolina.
Four college students are
shopping at Woolworth's,
a typical five and dime store.
At the cashier,
they buy toothpaste
and some school
supplies, a notebook,
and some colored pencils.
On the far side of the
shop is the lunch counter.
They can smell the aroma
of coffee and apple pie,
and hear the whir of
the soda fountain,
and it's milkshakes
and ice cream sodas.
- This was a meeting point,
throughout most cities,
the lunch counter
at a Woolworths.
So in a moment where
African Americans
are arguing for the
right of equal access
to both public and
private facilities,
it's not by accident that
the Woolworths counter
would be come a
sight of struggle.
- [Narrator] An invisible line
separates the four friends
in the shopping area
from the lunch counter.
It's called segregation.
To cross that line would risk
arrest, a beating, or worse.
But they cross it anyway,
and sit down at the counter
where they're refused service.
The following day,
25 students turn up at the
lunch counter to protest.
On the third day, there
are 63. And by Friday, 300.
- This would become
a flash point
in what was emerging as
the civil rights movement.
It was four young
African Americans
who made the decision
to sit at the counter,
and endure epithets, violence,
to remain resolute,
civil, and resounding.
The image of these four African
Americans sitting there,
facing the riotist,
animalistic actions
of these white crowds
surrounding them
became a turning point.
- They had credible optimism
of, we can make this country
live up to its promise, and
that's what we're gonna do.
And if it means that
we have to face death,
then we have to face it.
It's incredibly brave.
It's an heroic period
in American history.
- [Narrator] Within a month,
the protests have spread
to 30 cities in seven states,
involving 50,000 students.
From Greensboro, and
elsewhere in The South,
the civil rights
movement heads north,
along the route of
the great migration.
- Martin Luther King marches
through white neighborhoods
on the west side of Chicago.
And he says that
he had never seen
anything like this in his life.
Marching through Chicago's
white neighborhoods,
he was hit with the N word.
There were nooses.
There were swastikas
and Confederate flags.
He was hit in the
head with a brick.
He said some of the
worst racial violence
he had ever experienced
was in Birmingham, Alabama.
And he called Chicago the
Birmingham of The North.
- [Narrator] So
what does it take
to sign civil rights into law?
It turns out you need
not just one pen,
but several thousand.
- The great migration
has a tremendous
impact on politics in The North.
In the past, politicians
only had to make decisions
about how they might
engage white voters.
But once black voters
come into these cities,
through the great migration,
politicians have to
make calculations
about how they will engage them.
- They had to pay attention
to the black vote.
And that changed the dynamic
in the whole country.
- [Narrator] For
one young Senator
seeking to become President,
the answer seems all too easy.
- As part of his campaigning
to black people in 1960,
John F. Kennedy said
that he could end
housing segregation
and discrimination
with the stroke of a pen.
- [Narrator] In one of the
tightest presidential elections,
it's the African American vote
that gives the
victory to Kennedy.
But when he gets
into the oval office,
John F. Kennedy can't seem
to find a pen anywhere
to sign civil rights into law.
- Black people from
around the nation
mailed pens to The White House,
to remind him of his promise
that he could end segregation
with the stroke of a pen.
- Thousands and
thousands of pens
showed up at The White House.
- [Narrator] It's not until
1964, that President Johnson,
Kennedy's successor, signs
into law The Civil Rights Act.
And just because he
can, he uses 75 pens.
(somber music)
In the 20th century,
six million African Americans
make the trek north and west.
Their search for
justice and freedom
will continue to this day,
driven not by a number,
but by a hashtag.
- The Black Lives Matter
movement basically speaks
to the failed promises
of the great migration.
The jaundiced reality of
The North as a promise land,
that the children,
grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren
whose parents and grandparents
had made the trek north
to make a better life
for their children
are realizing that conditions
were not as they had hoped.
(somber music)
- The issues that Black Lives
Matter is focused on today
are the same issues that
we were fighting about
during the great migration.
There has been progress.
But there is much further to go.
- [Narrator] To this day, the
children and grandchildren
of the great migration
continue to transform America.
- While the great migration
might be a unfinished project,
it's a spirit, it's an ambition.
It is an audacity to believe
that there can be another way,
despite the overwhelming force
of one's current condition.
That spirit is
carried within me.
Most historians don't
have the opportunity
to be a product of the
history that they tell.
But I can say that
I am a historian
that is proud to be a product
of the history of
the great migration.
- What I see with the
great migration was people
creating their own
story, having agency.
And I think that their
children and grandchildren,
I'm one of them, have
benefited from that incredible
push onward and forward.
(blues music)
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01x20 - The Great Migration
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This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.
This series is loaded with mind-blowing factoids and stats, entertaining expert interviews, and infographics injected with cheeky humor.