Up South: African-American Migration in the Era of the Great War

Up South portrays the dramatic story of movement, self transformation and collective action during the exodus from the South to industrial cities during World War I. Letters, oral histories,songs, photographs, and art convey how southern black culture and traditions helped sustain migrants as they rejected the oppression and indignity of the Jim Crow South. But the "promised land" proved to be a complex and contentious cityscape. The rise of black politics, racial violence and the July 1919 race riot, women's club and church activities, the industrial workplace, and the "New Negro" are some of the issues and events explored in the program.