My Migration Story by Gabi Balinski

1 of 13

Slide Notes

My Migration Story

Published on Nov 20, 2015

No Description

PRESENTATION OUTLINE

MY MIGRATION STORY

BY:GABRIELLA BALINSKI HR312/10/14

My name is Eugene. I'm a working farmer on a cotton farm. I don't have much education and I can't pass my literacy test so I cant vote.

Working in the cotton farms is hard because of the Boll Weevil. The Boll Weevil is a bug that kills crops. It put many people out of jobs, including me. This picture shows me and my friends working in the field. "..the tiny boll weevil invaded Texas and proceeded to eat its way east across the South. Crops were devastated, thousands of agricultural workers thrown off the land.."

Many of my friends got killed by being hung. I knew it wasn't safe for me here. Plus by the way the north is sounding from my aunts, I wanna leave as soon as possible. The north actually has opportunities for me!

I also read a success story about a person who made it good in the North. I started thinking that could be me. I decided to travel to the north. I gathered my train pass and I ended up in Chicago.

GROWTH OF BLACK POPULATION

Detroit had the greatest growth in population. Chicago was the second lowest percentage of growth in my race.

Photo by FutUndBeidl

When I got to Chicago I went to work in the Ford assembly line. Since I wasn't very skilled I was happy I could still find good work. I didn't enjoy having to compete with white people for employment though. This picture shows an African American working on a part of a car. It was part of the assembly line. "Henry Ford started a small experiment to see if black workers could be used on the assembly line. In 1910, fewer than 600 of the more than 100,000 automotive workers in the United States were African American."

My new job is better then my old one, but the pay isn't very good. I only make half of what I need for my family. The average family needs $43 dollars per week. I only make $25 for a 48-60 hour week..."with the average migrant earning about $25 for a forty-eight to sixty-hour workweek"

I went to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to help me find living space. I got put into one of the ghettos like most of the African Americans. They were absolutely horrible. "Whites also fled the areas where black migrants concentrated "as if from a plague.""

Photo by washington_area_spark

While entering the year 1919, I was starting to get scared while walking in the streets, going to work, or even being at home. This is what they called The Red Summer.

"Mobs quickly took to the streets, threatening and attacking any blacks they could find. The local police made no attempt to control the situation."

In 1915, I remember hearing about how a black man was trying to go for councilmen. He succeeded and was the first African American to do so. "Perhaps the most outstanding was Oscar DePriest, who became Chicago's first black councilman in 1915."

The Great Migration wasn't only about that time period, it was an effect on the way life is today. It set the boundaries for new generations. "The Great Migration was about African Americans starting over and making sacrifices for future generations"

Gabi Balinski