Great Migrations: A People on The Move

In 1924 the U.S. passed its most restrictive and biased immigration laws in history. Despite restrictions, a number of Africans were sent to the U.S. temporarily for education in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s. They often attended HBCUs where they had meaningful exchanges with African Americans.

Skip goes to Houston, TX where a large Nigerian Immigrant population resides, and he meets with restaurateur, Rasak Odewale. They discuss how his life has changed since immigrating to the U.S., including meeting and starting a family with his wife Tiffany.

The 1967 Detroit uprising was one of the most violent of the 20th century, and it was rooted in a series of grievances, first and foremost, persistent police harassment.

Housing had always been inadequate in the Northern Black neighborhoods of the Great Migration but there were even more sinister forces at work: government policies that sought to keep neighborhoods segregated by race – or destroy Black neighborhoods altogether.

How the White Citizen Council, a southern segregationist group, exploited Black Southerners and took action to slow the growth of the civil rights movement.

The second wave of the great migration saw people not only traveling north but increasingly West, which provided a different flavor of freedom.

By the summer of 1919, racial tensions in Chicago reached a boiling point. When white people attacked, Black people fought back.

The Red Summer of 1919 was one of the most volatile periods of our nation’s history but one of the lesser known stories is how in the midst of some of the country’s worst racist violence, Black people fought back.

Great Migrations: A People on the Move explores the transformative impact of Black migration on American culture and society. From the waves of Black Americans to the North—and back South—over the last century to the growing number of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean today, the film shows how movement is a defining feature of the Black experience.

Great Migrations: A People on the Move explores the transformative impact of Black migration on American culture and society. From the waves of Black Americans to the North—and back South—over the last century to the growing number of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean today, the film shows how movement is a defining feature of the Black experience.