The Great Migration

The Great Migration — About Six Million Decisions That Remade America

Between roughly 1910 and 1970, about six million Black southerners left the South for the North, Midwest, and West. They were not blown north like weather. They read, saved, wrote letters, chose a date, bought a ticket — and built. The Great Migration, by Carlos L. Young Sr., tells that story in six volumes, each in a Standard Companion Edition and a Kid-Friendly Edition of the same book: full text, recorded narration by Marcus, a timeline, an educator quiz, and sources with a method note in every chapter. Contested numbers are printed as attributed ranges — the headline total is about six million, with the 6–6.5 million attributed range wherever numbers are discussed.

Vol. 1 — Why They Left: The Push, the Pull, and the Call North

Why they left — Jim Crow, the sharecropper's ledger, boll weevils and flood water, the paper and the letters that carried the word, and the kitchen-table decision.

Vol. 2 — The Roads North

The roads north — three streams, the Illinois Central, Pullman porters, letters and clubs, buses and family cars, and the first winter.

Vol. 3 — Bronzeville and the Midwest

Bronzeville and the Midwest — Chicago, Detroit, and the sister cities: work, housing, churches, business, politics, and music.

Vol. 4 — Harlem and the East

Harlem and the East — New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington, and the Renaissance migrants and their children made.

Vol. 5 — Go West: The Second Migration and the California Dream

Go West — the larger second migration: defense work, shipyards, Los Angeles, Oakland, and the California dream, honestly weighed.

Vol. 6 — What They Built, What the South Lost (Capstone)

What they built, what the South lost — the legacy, the civil-rights groundwork, and the New Great Migration back South. The capstone.

For the classroom shelf

Per-volume TEKS correlation sheets, an Educator Guide and Pack, a 52-page Companion Workbook, a 26-scene Coloring Book, and a Dates That Matter poster support classroom use. Materials make a classroom eligible and well-supported; no district adoption is claimed.