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According to Wright, what challenges do the Kitchenettes create for African Americans? 7.

According to Wright, what challenges do the Kitchenettes create for African Americans? 7.

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6. According to Wright, what challenges do the Kitchenettes create for African Americans? 7. According to Wright, what prevents the black population in northern cities from dying out entirely? 8. Were African Americans better off moving from the South?
our death rate exceeds our birth rate, and if it were not for the trains and autos bringing us daily into the city from the plantations, The Great Migration, which occurred between 1916 and 1970, was the widespread movement of over 6 million African Americans from rural communities in the South to cities in the North, Midwest, and West. Their relocation was motivated byte desire to find better job opportunities and escape violence and discrimination. The Great Migration resulted in massive demographic shifts that still influence nearly all aspects of American life today. Following the Civil War, most southern states passed Jim Crow laws, which discriminated against African Americans by limiting many of their rights. Jim Crow segregation meant that southern blacks would continue to live in conditions of poverty and inequality. In addition, African Americans were targeted with imtimidation, lynching and mass violence in order to maintain segregation. During World War I, many industrialized cities in the North, Midwest and West faced a shortage of workers. Lage numbers of African Americans, usually traveling by train, boat or bus, left the South in hopes of better civil and economic opportunities. Unfortunately, many African Americans were not entirely able to escape racism. Urban life introduced new challenges for arriving migrants. Many new arrivals were able to attain a job, but competition for employment existed. Also, competition for living space in increasingly crowded cities presented new challenges. Racial tensions grew, resulting in several race riots in cities across the United States. Despite the numerous obstacles, millions of African Americans were able to uproot their lives and find better opportunities outside of the South. The social, political and economic impact of the Great Migration was dramatic. In 1900, 90 percent of black Americans lived in the South. By the end of the Great Migration in 1970, the South was home to nearly half of the country's African Americans. Document A - An excerpt from Great Migration, written by Jacob Lawrence whose parents moved North in the early 1900s "Life in the North brought many challenges, but the migrants' lives had changed for the better. The children were able to goto school, and their parents gained the freedom to vote. And the migrants kept coming. Theirs is a story of African-American strength and courage. I share it now as my parents told it to me, because their struggles and triumph ring true today. People all over the world are still on the move, trying to build better lives for themselves and for their families." Document B - Letter to the Chicago Defender - a black newspaper published in Chicago that encouraged southern blacks to migrate North - from Lutcher, Louisiana, May 13th, 1917 "Dear Sir:I have been reading the Chicago defender and seeing so many advertisements about the work in the north I thought tb write you concerning my condition. I am working hard in the south and can hardly earn a living. I have a wife and one child and can hardly feed them. I thought to write and ask you for some information concerning how to get a pass for myself and family. Please sir let me hear from you as quick as possible. Now this is all. Please dont publish my letter, I was out in town today talking to some of the men and they say if they could get passes that 30 or 40 of them would come. But they havent got the money and they dont know how to come. But they are good strong and able working men. If you will instruct me I will instruct the other men how to come as they all want to work. Please dont publish this because we have to whisper this around among ourselves because the white folks are angry now because the [blacks) are going north." Document C- Excerpt from "The One-Room Kitchenette" by Richard Wright. Wright highlights the bittersweet joy of leaving the South and the bitter reality many African Americans found in the one-room tenements in northern cities. "When the white folks move, the Bosses of the Buildings [landlords) let the property to us at rentals higher than those the whites paid. And the Bosses of the Buildings take these old houses and convert them into "kitchenettes," and then rent them to us a rates so high that they make fabulous fortunes...What they do is this: they take, say, a seven-room apartment, which rents for $50 a month to whites, and cut it up into seven small apartments, of one room each; they install one small gas stove and one smal sink in egch room, The Bosses of the Buildings rent these kitchenettes to us at the rate of, say, $6 a week. Hence, the same apartment for which white people- who can get jobs anywhere and who receive higher wages than we - pay $50 a month is rented to us for $42 a week! And because there are not enough houses for us to live in, because we have been used to sleeping several in a room on the plantations in the South, we rent these kitchenettes and are glad to get them. The kitchenette is our prison, our death sentence without a trial, the new form of mob violence that assaults not only the lme individual, but all of us, in its ceaseless attacks...The kitchenette, with its filth and foul air, with its one toilet for thirty or more tenants, kills our black babies so fast that in many cities twice as many of them die as white babies. The kitchenette is the reerd d fer ssardet fever, dysentery, typhoid, pneumonia, and malnutrition.. The kitchenette scatters death so widely amona us thes we black folks who dwell in the northern cities would die out entirely over the course of a few yegrs "
Transcribed Image Text:our death rate exceeds our birth rate, and if it were not for the trains and autos bringing us daily into the city from the plantations, The Great Migration, which occurred between 1916 and 1970, was the widespread movement of over 6 million African Americans from rural communities in the South to cities in the North, Midwest, and West. Their relocation was motivated byte desire to find better job opportunities and escape violence and discrimination. The Great Migration resulted in massive demographic shifts that still influence nearly all aspects of American life today. Following the Civil War, most southern states passed Jim Crow laws, which discriminated against African Americans by limiting many of their rights. Jim Crow segregation meant that southern blacks would continue to live in conditions of poverty and inequality. In addition, African Americans were targeted with imtimidation, lynching and mass violence in order to maintain segregation. During World War I, many industrialized cities in the North, Midwest and West faced a shortage of workers. Lage numbers of African Americans, usually traveling by train, boat or bus, left the South in hopes of better civil and economic opportunities. Unfortunately, many African Americans were not entirely able to escape racism. Urban life introduced new challenges for arriving migrants. Many new arrivals were able to attain a job, but competition for employment existed. Also, competition for living space in increasingly crowded cities presented new challenges. Racial tensions grew, resulting in several race riots in cities across the United States. Despite the numerous obstacles, millions of African Americans were able to uproot their lives and find better opportunities outside of the South. The social, political and economic impact of the Great Migration was dramatic. In 1900, 90 percent of black Americans lived in the South. By the end of the Great Migration in 1970, the South was home to nearly half of the country's African Americans. Document A - An excerpt from Great Migration, written by Jacob Lawrence whose parents moved North in the early 1900s "Life in the North brought many challenges, but the migrants' lives had changed for the better. The children were able to goto school, and their parents gained the freedom to vote. And the migrants kept coming. Theirs is a story of African-American strength and courage. I share it now as my parents told it to me, because their struggles and triumph ring true today. People all over the world are still on the move, trying to build better lives for themselves and for their families." Document B - Letter to the Chicago Defender - a black newspaper published in Chicago that encouraged southern blacks to migrate North - from Lutcher, Louisiana, May 13th, 1917 "Dear Sir:I have been reading the Chicago defender and seeing so many advertisements about the work in the north I thought tb write you concerning my condition. I am working hard in the south and can hardly earn a living. I have a wife and one child and can hardly feed them. I thought to write and ask you for some information concerning how to get a pass for myself and family. Please sir let me hear from you as quick as possible. Now this is all. Please dont publish my letter, I was out in town today talking to some of the men and they say if they could get passes that 30 or 40 of them would come. But they havent got the money and they dont know how to come. But they are good strong and able working men. If you will instruct me I will instruct the other men how to come as they all want to work. Please dont publish this because we have to whisper this around among ourselves because the white folks are angry now because the [blacks) are going north." Document C- Excerpt from "The One-Room Kitchenette" by Richard Wright. Wright highlights the bittersweet joy of leaving the South and the bitter reality many African Americans found in the one-room tenements in northern cities. "When the white folks move, the Bosses of the Buildings [landlords) let the property to us at rentals higher than those the whites paid. And the Bosses of the Buildings take these old houses and convert them into "kitchenettes," and then rent them to us a rates so high that they make fabulous fortunes...What they do is this: they take, say, a seven-room apartment, which rents for $50 a month to whites, and cut it up into seven small apartments, of one room each; they install one small gas stove and one smal sink in egch room, The Bosses of the Buildings rent these kitchenettes to us at the rate of, say, $6 a week. Hence, the same apartment for which white people- who can get jobs anywhere and who receive higher wages than we - pay $50 a month is rented to us for $42 a week! And because there are not enough houses for us to live in, because we have been used to sleeping several in a room on the plantations in the South, we rent these kitchenettes and are glad to get them. The kitchenette is our prison, our death sentence without a trial, the new form of mob violence that assaults not only the lme individual, but all of us, in its ceaseless attacks...The kitchenette, with its filth and foul air, with its one toilet for thirty or more tenants, kills our black babies so fast that in many cities twice as many of them die as white babies. The kitchenette is the reerd d fer ssardet fever, dysentery, typhoid, pneumonia, and malnutrition.. The kitchenette scatters death so widely amona us thes we black folks who dwell in the northern cities would die out entirely over the course of a few yegrs "
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