@Meh - what do you think?
I see what you are trying to say - but I don't agree.
It was two waves of the Great Migration.
The first wave was for many ADOS and formerly enslaved who were still living was to leave the South -- to not only escape White Terrorism -- but to try their hand at other jobs besides working the farm -- aka Sharecropping.
Many of them were threatened with violence -- and even killed for trying to leave the South.
With the first and second wave of the Great Migration - especially the second -- it was whites who were requesting more Black labor to come up. Southern whites were pissed that Black people were being advertised too and some scouted for work outside the South.
Whites would and did work the jobs -- it wasn't any "they wouldn't do" -- and the ADOS weren't "migrants." Their origin was the U.S. -- and were more than likely more "American" than any White they ran into in those states.
Migrants – people living and working outside their country of origin – are particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses.
You also have to tie in the WWI&II and the Vietnam War to the Great Migration (I&II) because that is where the vast majority of our fathers, uncles and grandfathers learned/enhanced skills. Those who survived and weren't cheated -- used the Military for betterment.
The South had just as much -- even more education for our people as other locations.
On the point of living with multiple people -- it was like that before, during and after the Great Migration (both). For instance, if I were to let you look at the Census records for any of my maternal and paternal lines - you will see everybody living together -- on the same land. Or the same street. This was from 1870 up until the 1950's. I have two sides of my maternal line on the same street -- for many years -- then you see one of my Great Grandfathers marrying one of my Great Grannies.
It was just safer, easier and better for them to live with and close to eachother. They were closeknit. I think they wanted too - and felt the safest doing so.
The large network of blacks -- is a given - these are the same people who live and have lived in this country before it's creation -- just moving around, living, working around the country like anyone else.
And Whites -- especially Southern whites -- did it too. They moved right along with Black people. Our families stayed in the South -- they didn't leave -- just some of their children and grandchildren did.
We didn't escape our country -- we stayed and fought - and broke barriers.
We also -- and some still do go home (the South) for many of us every summer when we were little and all holidays/family reunions.
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