Library Guides: African American Studies: AFRICAM 5B

The Great Migration

Your course assignment requires you to think about The Great Migration or The Great Exodus and the construction of "the Negro problem" by

1. exploring interactive maps, archives, and other digital resources

2. locating an object, article, map, etc. and to describe its connection to the themes/concepts discussed in class

3. discussing the theme of Black placemaking

Here a few suggested resources that will be useful for this assignment.

Websites

America's Great Migration Project
This project from the University of Washington explores a number of consequential migrations--Great Migrations--that helped reshape culture, politics, or economic structures including Black Great Migrations.
Jacob Lawrence Series Migration Map
This project from the Phillips Collection tells the story of the Great Migration, or mass movement of over one million African Americans from the rural South to the urban North in the early decades of the 20th century, a period that forever altered the social, economic, political, and cultural fabric of American society.

Library Databases

African American Communities This link opens in a new window
Focusing predominantly on Atlanta, Chicago, New York, and towns and cities in North Carolina this collection presents multiple aspects of the African American community.
Includes pamphlets, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, official records and in-depth oral histories, which reveal the prevalent challenges of racism, discrimination and integration, and a unique African American culture and identity. Also featured is a rich selection of visual material, including photographs, maps and ephemera.
African American Historical Newspapers (Proquest) This link opens in a new window
African American Historical Newspapers provides researchers with unprecedented access to perspectives and information that was excluded or marginalized in mainstream sources. Use this link to search across a range of newspapers significant to African American history.
Access includes: Atlanta Daily World‎ (1931 - 2010), The Baltimore Afro-American‎ (1893 - 2010), Chicago Defender‎ (1909 - 2010), Cleveland Call and Post (1934 - 2010), Los Angeles Sentinel‎ (1934 - 2010), Louisville Defender (1951 - 2010), Michigan Chronicle (1939 - 2010), New York Amsterdam News‎ (1922 - 2010), Norfolk Journal and Guide‎ (1916 - 2010), The Philadelphia Tribune (1912 - 2010), (Pittsburgh Courier‎ (1911 - 2010) .

Find Books

Use our catalog to find books at Berkeley. When you look at the book, check out the Subject Heading in its online record, which will link you to related books. For example, you can search for the subject "Migrations" + Group + Time Period, as in:

African Americans -- Migrations

African Americans -- Migrations -- History -- 19th century

African Americans -- Migrations -- History -- 20th century

Find Maps

The Earth Sciences & Map Library has extensive resources, including one of the largest map collections in California.

Maps related to the Great Migration are included in the following atlases located in the Earth Sciences & Map Library.

People on the Move : An Atlas of Migration by Russell King
Call Number: G1046.E27 P46 2010
ISBN: 9780520261518
Publication Date: 2010
Historical Atlas of the United States by Mark C. Carnes
Call Number: f G1201.S1 H5 2003 and Available Online
ISBN: 9780415941112
Publication Date: 2002

Secondary menu

African American Studies: AFRICAM 5B

The Great Migration

Websites

Library Databases

Find Books

Find Maps