Richard Wright's 1940 novel, Native Son, was the first book by an African-American writer to enjoy widespread success. In fact, Wright's novel generated much popular and critical interest before it was even published. Three hours after the book hit the shelves, the first print run sold out. Soon a school of black American writers—the "Wright School"—began modeling itself after the author in the belief that candid art about the black American would lead to positive political change. Wright suddenly became the most recognized black author in America. Today, the novel is essential to an understanding of twentieth-century American literature.
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When the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a patriotic organization of descendents of the founding citizens of the United States, prohibited world-famous African American singer Marian Anderson from performing at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt responded by resigning from the organization. In a stern letter, Roosevelt criticized the DAR for having "failed" to "lead in an enlightened way" on the issue.
In 1932 the DAR had implemented a rule that barred African American artists from performing at Constitution Hall after the organization received complaints about "mixed" seating (blacks and whites seated together) at concerts of African American artists.
The controversy triggered broad public condemnation of the DAR. Supreme Court justices, state, Senate, and House leaders, and major religious and labor organizations issued statements that condemned the racial discrimination. Following the First Lady's controversial stand against racial segregation in a public space at the nation's capital, the federal government invited Anderson to sing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. On April 9, 1939, an interracial crowd of seventy-five thousand people attended the free recital. Anderson reflected on that day in her autobiography: "All I knew then was the overwhelming impact of the vast multitude … I had a feeling that a great wave of good will poured out from these people." Although such moments where the color barrier had broken down remained infrequent in the coming decades, racial integration was increasingly becoming a national issue of concern to many Americans.
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The Great Migration was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960. During the initial wave the majority of migrants moved to major northern cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and New York. By World War II the migrants continued to move North but many of them headed west to Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.
The first large movement of blacks occurred during World War I, when 454,000 black southerners moved north. In the 1920s, another 800,000 blacks left the south, followed by 398,000 blacks in the 1930s. Between 1940 and 1960 over 3,348,000 blacks left the south for northern and western cities. The economic motivations for migration were a combination of the desire to escape oppressive economic conditions in the south and the promise of greater prosperity in the north.
In additional to migrating for job opportunities, blacks also moved north in order to escape the oppressive conditions of the south. Some of the main social factors for migration included lynching, an unfair legal system, inequality in education, and denial of suffrage. The great migration, one of the largest internal migrations in the history of the United States, changed forever the urban North, the rural South, African America and in many respects, the entire nation.
Sources:
James M. Gregory, The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005);
TASK: Click on the Literature Resource Center, Gale Virtual Reference Library, etc. databases . Search for and find one relevant fact about a work. Highlight and copy the fact and the item's citation. Click on the Comments link in this box. Paste the citation into the post text box. Add your name, put your work title in the subject (email optional) and post comment!
TASK: Click on the Literature Resource Center, Gale Virtual Reference Library, etc. databases . Search for and find one relevant fact about a work. Highlight and copy the fact and the item's citation. Click on the Comments link in this box. Paste the citation into the post text box. Add your name, put your work title in the subject (email optional) and post comment!
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Carrying a sign in front of a milk company, Chicago, Illinois, July 1941 John Vachon, Photographer Gelatin-silver print FSA-OWI Collection Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (123)
"Let Jesus lead you and Roosevelt feed you" (quoted in Robert S. McElvaine. The Great Depression: America, 1929–1941, 1993). These words were spoken by a black minister to his congregation shortly before the 1936 presidential election.
"Black Americans 1929-1941." Historic Events for Students: The Great Depression. Ed. Richard C. Hanes and Sharon M. Hanes. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2002. 66-86. U.S. History in Context. Web. 2 Mar. 2015.
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Literature and its times : profiles of 300 notable literary works and the historical events that influenced them
Greenwood encyclopedia of African American literature
Notable African American writers
