Early Choices
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It is often said that the greatest journey begins with a single step. This was true for African American migrants for whom making the decision to leave the South was their first step in their migration efforts. One can look at the socioeconomic factors that existed in the south during the Jim Crow era and state that the decision to leave was simple. In truth, however, this decision was a balancing act with the potential migrant needing to ask themselves several questions and weight the potential gains against the separation from family and community. Questions like "How bad is it here?" versus "How good is it there?" were weighed against questions such as "Who will go?","How much will it cost?", and "What arrangements will be made for those left behind?" (Black Histroy, 2008). These questions may give us an idea of what the decisions a migrant may have struggled with prior to moving north, but it does not give us any idea of who they were.
At best those African-Americans who chose to relocate early on were of a group set motivated northward by internal factors/reasons at a level greater than the external ones. These individuals came not only from rural farming communities, but from small towns and cities throughout the south. They migrated with more experience in non agricultural employment than is typically assumed. The common concept of the "typical" migrant is that of an illiterate sharecropper, displaced from the rural south because of agricultural distress (Tolnay, 1993). Given the atmosphere of the rural south during this period, one can easily see how this image pervades as a prevalent representation of African-Americans.
What this profile fails to recognize, however, is the diversity of African-Americans who lived throughout the south and of those who chose to relocate. Yes, African-American living in rural communities did migrate, but African-Americans from southern towns and cities also headed north. In his article “The Great American Migration and Beyond”, Tolnay suggests that participants in the Great Migration may have been positively selected for the larger African-American southern population based on their greater ambition, stronger work ethic, and willingness to defer gratification (1993). In this light, the rural migrant – especially those who were at the forefront of the Great Migration – possessed a greater level of drive than their counterparts who chose to remain or who migrated at a later period. These traits, Tolnay goes on to explain, are often associated with migrant populations and have been included in explanations for the frequently observed success of migrants in their new places of residences (1993). |