Eventually, your family saves enough to rent a small diner. People can order affordable Southern food there at all hours, even after late-night factory shifts. You don’t get much time off. Even so, you’re happier than many of your cousins and friends who stayed down South.
After Reconstruction, states in the South passed Jim Crow laws. These laws limited the rights of freed African Americans. That’s why thousands of formerly enslaved people moved north. The Great Migration happened between 1910 and 1930. Migration is movement within a country. By the time this big move slowed, more than half of all African Americans lived in the Northeast and Midwest.
As many African Americans migrated north, millions of immigrants were arriving from other countries. Between 1860 and 1910, about 23 million immigrants arrived. They brought new hopes, cultures, and traditions with them.
