Between the 1880s and the 1930s, at least 2.5 million Southern blacks moved north. They were enticed by articles and editorials in the Chicago Defender, Pittsburgh Courier and other black papers; a cotton sector ravaged by flood and insects; labor shortages during World War I; their use as strikebreakers; a burgeoning automobile industry; a desire for better housing and schools; and, most important, a desire to escape Jim Crow.

Click here for video of One Way Ticket: History of the Black Press and the Great Migration. Click here for video of Jacob Lawrence's Great Migration series.