The Great Migration

 In Fences, Troy Maxson is a character living in what should be 1950s Pittsburgh.

However he like many other blacks of the 1950s, were not born in the North, and had migrated from the South in the 1920s.  This move that carried 1.5 million African Americans is an event in US History called the Great Migration. This influx of Blacks into the North caused both great racial tension and great racial self-pride.

The Great Migration resulted in the development of a New Black America. Leaders like Marcus Garvey in Harlem and artists like Langston Hughes produced a new vision of the Black American. Garvey’s almost regal militarism with the UNIA (United Negro Improvement Association) created a social infrastructure that helped Blacks who were denied service to things like grocery stores and Laundromats. Marcus Garvey came up with the idea that Blacks should provide and fend for themselves. He had many ideas at the time that many Americans then and now, would find radical, like Jesus and Mary being black. Marcus Garvey was a pioneer in the implementation of Black pride and mobilization. Before the Black Panthers of the 1960s, Garvey developed a way for Blacks to be self-sufficient.

            The Great Migration also developed a new attitude in literature; most notable of this new birth in Black literature was Langston Hughes. He like many others in the Harlem Renaissance, were not from Harlem, and wrote of the South and the injustices still occurring not only there, but also across the country. Hughes was a gifted writer and poet who portrayed the beauty in the struggles of the Black people.