A bigger exodus, known as the "Great Migration," began with World War I. Increased mechanization in farming left sharecroppers with little to do. But with its booming cotton economy, the ...

Gates ("Gospel," "Making Black America," "Finding Your Roots") argues here that the Great Migration "continues to shape the ...

Stepping onto the platform at Michigan Central Station was stepping into a new chapter. For Black families leaving the Jim Crow South, Detroit was more than a destination. It was a declaration. They ...

The docuseries will explore pressures, both political and economic, that sparked the migration. According to Gates, Detroit's Black population rose by thousands in the early 1900s due to the Great ...

This essay is part of The Great Migration, a series by Lydia Polgreen exploring how people are moving around the world today. We are living in an age of mass migration. Millions of people from the ...