The Great Migration. This event has undoubtedly changed the course of American history.  It has led to not only integration, but has paved the way towards racial equality in urban American cities. As seen in the chart shown below, the percentages of African Americans living in the south was on a steady decline starting in the year of 1910.

Before this astronomical event occurred, the majority of African Americans lived in the southern parts of the United States, which covers a mostly rural area. Wilkerson’s article made me reflect on my knowledge of the Great Migration and what great impacts it has made. According to Wilkinson, “Over the course of six decades, six million black southerners left the land of their forefathers and fanned out across the country for an uncertain existence in nearly every corner of America.”  The Great Migration has made a large impact on American culture, form forming their own cultural cities in the north, like Harlem, in New York City , to creating a cultural and artistic impact on American Society with the poems and songs of Langston Hughes and B.B. King.

Without the Great Migration, we would not has much cultural diversity across the country as we do today. It has allowed for true change to take place in America with the high prominence of Martin Luther King Jr, and landmark cases like Brown vs. The Board of Education, which allowed for the implementation of desegregation of states schools, as it was considered unconstitutional . The Great Migration was the turning point for Black History in the United States, as it allowed for African Americans in the country to move into cities that they have never known before, ultimately changing the way we as Americans view urban life and urban culture.