Map Monday: The Second Great African-American Migration

Here’s a timely map for you for MLK day, showing the “second migration” of African-Americans from the South to the North following World War II. Here’s the map showing how regional migration followed specific railroad corridors:

2nd great migration

There’s a lot of history to this, and I recommend Isabel Wilkerson’s excellent history, The Warmth of Other Suns for the definitive history of the mid-century black migrations.

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Bill Lindeke

About Bill Lindeke

Pronouns: he/him

Bill Lindeke has writing blogging about sidewalks and cities since 2005, ever since he read Jane Jacobs. He is a lecturer in Urban Studies at the University of Minnesota Geography Department, the Cityscape columnist at Minnpost, and has written multiple books on local urban history. He was born in Minneapolis, but has spent most of his time in St Paul. Check out Twitter @BillLindeke or on Facebook.