AH Challenge: No African-American 20th century 'Great Migration' north and west

raharris1973

Well-known member
The challenge is to have no African-American 20th century 'Great Migration' north and west. Your PoD can be 20th century, or late 19th century, but it must be post *1868*.

This would leave the African-American population overwhelmingly concentrated in the southern United States through the 20th century, instead of something more like the bare majority being concentrated there.

Some potential ideas -

-Discussed a few times previously - immigration restrictions against southern and eastern Europeans never kicked in, and this reduces the "pull factor" of northern job opportunities and labor recruiters since immigrants fill labor demand

-somewhat related and parallel to above, no US participation in either world war leading to less northeastern, midwestern, western demand for southern labor to relocate, possibly no WWI means no Red Scare means no or slow or less immigration restriction

-Newer idea - stronger economic "anchor" in the south: accelerated development of southern manufacturing and service employment, via earlier invention and deployment of air conditioning technology?

-Newer idea - stronger economic "anchor" in the south: accelerated development of southern manufacturing and service employment, industry moves harder and faster and more aggressively south from the 1920s through the 1960s, especially from the Wagner Act on to seek out the non-unionized southern labor force (black and white) and punish the unionizing northern workforce and legal regime. Now they did not do so super abruptly in OTL, so maybe we need some facilitating factors to be in place beforehand. Perhaps southern state governments and national governments in the decades from the 1880s-1930s could have more generously improved transportation, water, electrical and other infrastructures over time in the south so it wasn't so abysmally behind that the midwest and northeast were ahead even with unionization?

-Kill the "pull factors" in the north, hard and nasty - somehow replicate the full Jim Crow suite, 100% in northern states, with the end of Reconstruction, and keep it going at the same intensity and duration as the south.

Now, in any of these scenarios, would any southern states which had black majorities in the reconstruction period, like South Carolina, Mississippi, or Louisiana, retain those majorities through the 20th century? Or would the effect of immigration and economic "anchors" in the south or reduced "pull factors" in the south also maintain or increase white population in all southern states enough to outnumber blacks in every state?

Assuming some states in the south remain African-American majority, and Civil Rights enfranchisement/Voting Rights Acts occur on schedule, would this notably increase the representational weight and bargaining power of African-Americans politically from the 1970s onward?

Would Civil Rights on OTL's schedule be a good or bad assumption?
Pro- Broad trends in the world, anti-colonial developments in the world, television, steady increases in education and expectations
Anti- Smaller represented African-American communities in the north to electorally pressure northern politicians , support media institutions, and to resource the Civil Rights movement, even more white massive resistance to African-American voting rights in states where it means the end of white majority votership

More integral and cohesive African-American extended family, inter-generational and community life with less extra-regional migration? Does the possible added social capital make up for potential lost income and potential lost educational opportunities?

Based on statistical observations of trends, the pre-existing non-southern African-American communities may on balance benefit from a lack of a Great migration. On the one hand, newcomers from the south won't be a source of patrons for their businesses. On the other, new arrivals won't push their wage scales down, and convergence over time with white labor rates over generations, and social mixing, may be faster, depending on how conditions in the north are altered.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
-Discussed a few times previously - immigration restrictions against southern and eastern Europeans never kicked in, and this reduces the "pull factor" of northern job opportunities and labor recruiters since immigrants fill labor demand

This seems like your best bet here. The challenge, of course, is how to delay this by more than one or two decades at the very most. Even in 1917, the US Congress passed a literacy test over Woodrow Wilson's veto, and it was already foreseeable even back then that there would be more where that came from:


The Dillingham Commission made its report in favor of less Eastern and Southern European immigration in the early 1910s, apparently:


One could, of course, aim to have the US adopt a merit-based immigration system instead of almost completely shutting the doors to Southern and Eastern Europeans, but I don't think that Americans would actually want that since Jews would disproportionately benefit from any merit-based immigration system. Well, Jews and East Asians, if East Asians were not already excluded from the US. Jews in the US performed very well on IQ tests even back then:


I discussed the topic of immigration into the US without World War I here:


But Yeah, once the Europeans will stop coming to the Northern US, blacks will likely move in to replace them, unless for some reason the US manages to have a huge Latin American immigration wave much earlier, but that's pretty hard to do since Latin America didn't really begin its demographic transition yet back in the early 20th century--at least, not anywhere near to the same extent that it would later undergo it.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Another radical solution for this problem, but one that's more difficult due to the sheer difficulty of the US constitutional amendment process: Pass a new US constitutional amendment that allows US states to restrict internal migration, including by race. The South could endorse this as a way to prevent its black population from leaving and the North and West could endorse this as a way to prevent additional black people from moving to their own states. People in the Northern and Western US often did not want black people living near them, as evidenced by things such as restrictive covenants and whatnot being extremely widespread there until the US Supreme Court struck them down in 1948.
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
Given all the obstacles you cite to sustaining public tolerance for mass "new" immigration at 1910s levels through the 1920s and beyond, why is that the best bet?

What's more likely given basic, foundational American socio-political structures and attitudes, an outbreak of assimilationist or tolerationist of multiculturalist tolerance, or less heroic, idealistic, 'do-gooder', progressive things from the OP like 'early air conditioning' or 'earlier flight of industry south to avoid unions'?
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
What's more likely given basic, foundational American socio-political structures and attitudes, an outbreak of assimilationist or tolerationist of multiculturalist tolerance, or less heroic, idealistic, 'do-gooder', progressive things from the OP like 'early air conditioning' or 'earlier flight of industry south to avoid unions'?

Those things would help but the thing is that blacks would still be severely mistreated in the Southern US due to forced segregation, anti-miscegenation laws, occasional lynchings, et cetera. Unless you also intend to make Southern racial attitudes much more progressive earlier, but I think that this would be a huge challenge since I simply don't think that federal willingness to enforce civil rights could have realistically come about much earlier without truly significant changes to US history. If you're able to make Reconstruction, or at least a part of it, stick and also produce earlier industrialization in the Southern US, then you could indeed have less blacks move to other parts of the US in the 20th century. The key challenge, of course, is how exactly to make Reconstruction, or at least a part of it, permanently stick and also produce earlier industrialization in the Southern US. My best bet might be to create a separate US state for blacks in the Mississippi Delta during Reconstruction or something like that and then have the US federal government aggressively spend money to industrialize this state, along with of course sending smart Northerners down to this state to help with the industrialization process. Then this US state could be a safe haven for other Southern blacks fleeing Jim Crow and the industrialization there could motivate blacks who are hungry for more well-paying industrial jobs to move there instead of moving to other parts of the US. It would of course also "help" if people in other parts of the US would have been even more hostile towards black migration than they were in real life, with more lynchings and whatnot rather than generally dealing with unwanted black migration in a more "diplomatic" manner through racially restrictive covenants and whatnot.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
this is pretty easy



The Mexicans are able to kick the French out faster then our time line and then decide to unify their population by invading the country during the civil war to 'retake' lost land. This obviously does not go well for them. After the civil war is over mexico is punished with the loss of land.

R.5093f28b6858d5278b1b218404bc8956


To make it simple you could just take Baha and the provinces closest to the United states their mostly not that populated during this time period. So you just fought a civil war and dealt with an invasion from the south. You also have a huge population of recently freed slaves and a resentful white population.

Simple solution you give the freemen population free land in the newly aquired areas to settle and secure it. This doesn't make everyone happy but hey free land right?

So now you have black land owners who end up surpassing the hispanic population creating black dominate states. Once you own land and have a place of prominance people kind of get comfortable. The great migration to the north and what we consider the west thus does not happen.

Mexican american relations how ever probally become more toxic as a result of this and you most likely have a simmering hate between the freeman population and the hispanic one across the boarder.
 

Eparkhos

Well-known member
OTL, the criollo-dominated Republic of the Yucatan tried to annex itself into the U.S. in 1848, and the bill to accept this failed in the Senate by two votes. Had it succeeded, the U.S. would've inherited the Yucatec Caste War, an ongoing bloodbath of an insurgency that pitted the criollos and Hispanicized natives against the Maya and had become a viscious race/class/ethnic war. American strategy would've likely been similar to the Yucatec's, which consisted of rotating periods of flailing expeditions-turn-massacres and fending off sieges of the criollo-dominated cities. When the ACW breaks out, American forces will be otherwise occupied and by-and-large withdraw, allowing the Maya to make serious gains and threaten the American/Yucatec position.

Then, once Emancipation and 40 acres and a mule come around, the U.S. has a large population of freedmen, many of whom are veterans and loyal to the Union as a whole, and a large area of jungle land where disease kills pretty much any white who goes there with hostile natives to be subdued. The solution is obvious.

Several decades and a great deal of bloodshed later, the north-western two-thirds of the Yucatan are covered by a network of Black settlements and the Maya have been driven into the south-eastern third of the peninsula, probably cordoned off as a 'reservation' that the BIA has very little actual control in because of its sheer size and terrain. More importantly, the state government is dominated by Blacks, so there's no way in hell any equivalent of Jim Crow is passed. The Yucatan is then a logical destination for Black migration in lieu of the North, though I can't say if it's enough to prevent the Great Migration in recognizable form it is enough to chip away at it.
 

Buba

A total creep
a large area of jungle land where disease kills pretty much any white who goes there with hostile natives to be subdued. The solution is obvious.
I suspect that this is dead on the water due to the Yucatan's limited carrying capacity.
But an IMO just as - if not more - pertinent question. Is the American Negro still resistant to the Carribean Cesspool of Tropical Diseases?
 

Eparkhos

Well-known member
I suspect that this is dead on the water due to the Yucatan's limited carrying capacity.
But an IMO just as - if not more - pertinent question. Is the American Negro still resistant to the Carribean Cesspool of Tropical Diseases?
Somewhat. American Blacks have some genetic traits for disease resistance (notably sickle cells, which are good at limiting malaria but bad at everything else), not as many as Carribbean Blacks but significantly more then Whites have. Without any pressure from White settlers, I can't see any real reason why there would be government attempts to prevent Black settlement in the Yucatan.
 

Circle of Willis

Well-known member
How about a more successful Reconstruction? Say Cornelius Vanderbilt crushes Jay Gould in the 'Erie War'. With Gould humiliated and impoverished (ideally as much as possible), the railroad craze of the 1860s and '70s is less expansive and more manageable, and the US also avoids Black Friday in 1869 thanks to Gould having lost influence. Delay the Panic of 1873, and by extension the Long Depression, and the Democrats' window to regain national prominence remains shut for probably at least another decade. Without an ailing economy to worry about, the Northern public and their Republican representatives can remain committed to Reconstruction for a bit longer.

Now President Grant has already more or less squashed the KKK in the early 1870s, but a new threat was posed by white supremacist paramilitaries like the White League and Red Shirts. A better-off US led by a less divided Republican Party with a stronger commitment to Reconstruction can suppress these terrorists more effectively and while it's almost certain that white supremacists will regain control in large parts of the South, it's possible to entrench biracial control in at least some states even with a post-ACW POD. South Carolina and Mississippi are the easiest places to do this, as although they had some of the most violent and psychopathic white supremacists such as Ben Tillman, they also had black majority populations. North Carolina had a biracial 'Fusion' coalition of Republicans & Populists who were able to hang on until a white supremacist coup in Wilmington crippled them in 1898, in Arkansas a better economy means you may be able to avoid the unrest which escalated into the Brooks-Baxter War, and even in Texas a stronger Grant will be in a better position to send troops to support pro-civil-rights Republican governor Edmund Davis against the white supremacist-backed Democrats.

In any case, if you can preserve even one Southern state against the Redeemers (the more, the merrier though) then you'll have an obvious sanctuary for the freedmen to gravitate toward once white supremacist forces reassert themselves in other parts of the South, where they can safely accumulate generational wealth, get educated, and make themselves heard politically without having white supremacist mobs burn all their hard work down Rosewood style. That way they will have little need to migrate north in search of opportunities and slightly more safety than down south. That said, turning Mississippi or SC or wherever into a sort of internal Liberia might actually extend segregation, as segregationists will be able to argue 'well of course separate but equal works, the blacks of that sanctuary state are living separately from but equally to us'. If you're looking for a shortened civil rights struggle in general, having the black population be more widely dispersed across a few biracial states instead of being concentrated into a single black supermajority 'sanctuary' might be a better bet.
 

Buba

A total creep
To expand on one of the OP's @raharris1973 ideas - a non Jim Crow Alabama combined with no stiffling of its steel industry by Northern interests.
The Black Country/Rhur Valley/Donbas of the South siphons in hundreds of thousands of Blacks, with ramifications in Georgia and Mississippi. Tennessee even!
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
To expand on one of the OP's @raharris1973 ideas - a non Jim Crow Alabama combined with no stiffling of its steel industry by Northern interests.

Were northern interests really responsible for holding Alabama steel back? Or was it other factors? Poorer infrastructure, greater distance from markets and ports (that weren't as wealthy anyway), fewer high end engineers and mid-level skilled mechanics, etc.?
 

Buba

A total creep
Sadly I cannot give you details.
The Alabamiam steel industry being held back by a Pennsylvanian (?) cartel agreement is something I've seen, on AH.com most likely. With a map even, IIRC showing how the eastern USA was carved up between various steel providers.
Of course, Da Man being held down by Evul!Yanks is unlikely to be the sole reason. You give good ideas as to other growth hampering reasons. "Human capital" is easiest to move, though, even if the climate is awful.
Maybe post a question about "an earlier Dixie Donbas" here and on AH.com?

BTW - maybe connecting B'imgam with the sea by way of navigable Black Warrior, Tombigbee and Mobile Rivers sooner would help?
 
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History Learner

Well-known member
Avoid the Great War and/or the U.S. immigration restrictionism after said conflict; Blacks moved up from the South in response to the need of labor in the factories by Northern Industrialists.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
Avoid the Great War and/or the U.S. immigration restrictionism after said conflict; Blacks moved up from the South in response to the need of labor in the factories by Northern Industrialists.

I don't think that avoiding the Great War would have permanently prevented US immigration restrictionism. Delayed it, possibly, but not permanently prevented it. The Dillingham Commission report against immigration from southern and eastern Europe was published in the early 1910s, a literacy test got support from almost two-thirds of both houses of the US Congress in 1913 (and again in 1915 before finally passing over Woodrow Wilson's veto in 1917), et cetera.
 

ATP

Well-known member
The challenge is to have no African-American 20th century 'Great Migration' north and west. Your PoD can be 20th century, or late 19th century, but it must be post *1868*.

This would leave the African-American population overwhelmingly concentrated in the southern United States through the 20th century, instead of something more like the bare majority being concentrated there.

Some potential ideas -

-Discussed a few times previously - immigration restrictions against southern and eastern Europeans never kicked in, and this reduces the "pull factor" of northern job opportunities and labor recruiters since immigrants fill labor demand

-somewhat related and parallel to above, no US participation in either world war leading to less northeastern, midwestern, western demand for southern labor to relocate, possibly no WWI means no Red Scare means no or slow or less immigration restriction

-Newer idea - stronger economic "anchor" in the south: accelerated development of southern manufacturing and service employment, via earlier invention and deployment of air conditioning technology?

-Newer idea - stronger economic "anchor" in the south: accelerated development of southern manufacturing and service employment, industry moves harder and faster and more aggressively south from the 1920s through the 1960s, especially from the Wagner Act on to seek out the non-unionized southern labor force (black and white) and punish the unionizing northern workforce and legal regime. Now they did not do so super abruptly in OTL, so maybe we need some facilitating factors to be in place beforehand. Perhaps southern state governments and national governments in the decades from the 1880s-1930s could have more generously improved transportation, water, electrical and other infrastructures over time in the south so it wasn't so abysmally behind that the midwest and northeast were ahead even with unionization?

-Kill the "pull factors" in the north, hard and nasty - somehow replicate the full Jim Crow suite, 100% in northern states, with the end of Reconstruction, and keep it going at the same intensity and duration as the south.

Now, in any of these scenarios, would any southern states which had black majorities in the reconstruction period, like South Carolina, Mississippi, or Louisiana, retain those majorities through the 20th century? Or would the effect of immigration and economic "anchors" in the south or reduced "pull factors" in the south also maintain or increase white population in all southern states enough to outnumber blacks in every state?

Assuming some states in the south remain African-American majority, and Civil Rights enfranchisement/Voting Rights Acts occur on schedule, would this notably increase the representational weight and bargaining power of African-Americans politically from the 1970s onward?

Would Civil Rights on OTL's schedule be a good or bad assumption?
Pro- Broad trends in the world, anti-colonial developments in the world, television, steady increases in education and expectations
Anti- Smaller represented African-American communities in the north to electorally pressure northern politicians , support media institutions, and to resource the Civil Rights movement, even more white massive resistance to African-American voting rights in states where it means the end of white majority votership

More integral and cohesive African-American extended family, inter-generational and community life with less extra-regional migration? Does the possible added social capital make up for potential lost income and potential lost educational opportunities?

Based on statistical observations of trends, the pre-existing non-southern African-American communities may on balance benefit from a lack of a Great migration. On the one hand, newcomers from the south won't be a source of patrons for their businesses. On the other, new arrivals won't push their wage scales down, and convergence over time with white labor rates over generations, and social mixing, may be faster, depending on how conditions in the north are altered.

CSA not only win war for freedom,but do that with black soldier help.As a result,blacks get freedom and gradually become first class citizen.They do not have reasons to leave.
And those who try,are persecuted in USA even more - and everybody knew that.

P.S Not my idea, i read such scenario on AH once,forget title,as usual.
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
I don't think that avoiding the Great War would have permanently prevented US immigration restrictionism. Delayed it, possibly, but not permanently prevented it. The Dillingham Commission report against immigration from southern and eastern Europe was published in the early 1910s, a literacy test got support from almost two-thirds of both houses of the US Congress in 1913 (and again in 1915 before finally passing over Woodrow Wilson's veto in 1917), et cetera.

But - when does *selection* by literacy evolve into hard limitation by quantity and nationality? Or is the next evolution a selection limitation to literacy in English only, or English and a couple other select languages?

And note that education and literacy levels are variable, and pretty much always trend up over the years, with ever-expanding primary education mandates. Literacy rates will naturally begin to catch up with literacy requirements.
 

WolfBear

Well-known member
But - when does *selection* by literacy evolve into hard limitation by quantity and nationality? Or is the next evolution a selection limitation to literacy in English only, or English and a couple other select languages?

And note that education and literacy levels are variable, and pretty much always trend up over the years, with ever-expanding primary education mandates. Literacy rates will naturally begin to catch up with literacy requirements.

In real life, the US went from a literacy test in 1917 to national origin quotas in 1921. So, in just four years. Here, the process might take, say, 10 or 15 or 20 years rather than just four years. And Yes, increasing literacy in southern and eastern Europe might have been a part of the reason that immigration restrictionists quickly realized that a literacy test was no longer sufficient for them in achieving their goals.
 

raharris1973

Well-known member
In real life, the US went from a literacy test in 1917 to national origin quotas in 1921. So, in just four years.

Quite a lot happened in those 4 years:

US entry into WWI - a national campaign for 100% Americanism and pressure to not act like a "hyphenated" American if that connected you with the enemy (for German-Americans) or made you unenthusiastic for working with our allies (for Irish-Americans). The war effort, mobilization, conscription, and tighter blockade also further limits immigration during the 20 + months the US is at war.

Accelerates methods to substitute for decreased immigration from Europe [African-American migration, southern white migration, Puerto Rican migration]

The Bolshevik revolution and other chaotic political agitations in Europe - creating an association between Eastern European immigrants and leftist radicalism. And those immigrant groups and ethnic strife, as new nation states get set up and struggle over their borders.

Post-war - with the restoration of international shipping lanes, immigration lanes quickly rise again back up to pre-war peaks by 1921, alarming Americans after the wartime pause.

Plus, the years 1914-1917 had probably also seen an immigration slowdown because war and conscription in Europe probably increased ticket prices reduced European employment, and cut down on opportunities for young men to migrate in those years, so the normal baseline Americans were accustomed to had fallen in those years and substitution from the south was probably occurring in those years too.

Without a WWI at all, the setting to a lower baseline, and normalization of substitution methods, while not necessarily avoidable, could slow down quite a bit.
 

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