Newark

The year of 1916 started a phenomenon that once started, could not be stopped. This phenomenon is known as The Great Migration. Until 1970, African Americans from the South packed their belongings and headed to the North in search of a new opportunistic life. Southern Blacks yearned to escape the Jim Crow Laws of the South that disallowed them the rights that the North allowed. Six million Blacks took advantage of this trending movement and made the North their new home. Specifically, Blacks settled in cities like Chicago, Baltimore, New York City, Washington DC, and Newark, NJ. These cities were eventually overflowing with Blacks who were trying to make a living with either: 1) the little pay they were receiving from their jobs or 2) no job at all. Cities like this began to become overcrowded and filled with people living in poverty. This is the start of what we know as the “ghettos”.

Growing up in Newark, NJ, I have always looked around and wondered how we got where we are today. Studying the Great Migration in my classes have given me new insight and a new appreciation for my hometown.