The Great Migration
Narisse King
My research centered on the foundation of the "inner core" in Milwaukee as a direct result of the Great Migration (1916- 1970). Being the direct successor of the Underground Railroad itself, the Great Migration was an important development in the settling of the Black community across the country in pursuit of stability. As Black southerners fled the rampant discrimination in the South, much of the migrating population settled in Milwaukee, sending the Black population of Wisconsin skyrocketing from 12,158 in 1940 to 74,546 in 1960 — a near-600% increase [1]. Nearly 90% of this population lived in or near Milwaukee, Beloit, Racine, Kenosha, and Madison [2]. As of the start of the 21st Century, the Black community represented roughly 40-45% of Milwaukee's total population, greatly saturated in comparison to the national Black population of roughly 13% [3].
"They left as though they were fleeing some curse [...] They were willing to make almost any sacrifice to obtain a railroad ticket and they left with the intention of staying." - Emmett J. Scott [4]
The Great Migration started as an escape from the failures of the Southern agricultural system and oppressive Jim Crow laws [5]. Approximately six million Black individuals relocated to the North and West to find a higher quality of life [6]. However, these individuals were not just allowed to leave as they pleased. The South exerted its best efforts in restricting the movement of the Black community northward. Those who attempted to leave had to contend with law enforcement arresting them as they stood on the railroad platform; officers even tore up passengers' tickets to prevent them from leaving [7].
Source: From "The Inner Core - North: A Study of Milwaukee's Negro Community" by Charles T. O'Reilly, 1963. Accessed via Hathi Trust.
Milwaukee's "late great migration" was responsible for the Black population of the city itself rising from 22,000 in 1950 to 105,000 in 1970 [8]. A large attraction for the migrating Black community in a post-World War II world was the abundance of industrial employment in Milwaukee and the Midwest as a whole, specifically in manufacturing [9]. As a result, the Black population in Milwaukee ballooned and resulted in the formation of what we now know as Milwaukee's inner core; pre-existing systemic bias in employment (leading to rampant unemployment in the Black male community, only less severe than Detroit as of 2009) and residential segregation limited the Black population to a select area of the city on the North side, a legacy of Milwaukee's continuing issues with implicit segregation in the city [10].
