In this beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
Also known as the Great Northward Migration and the Black Migration, this movement of more than six million African Americans from American's rural southern regions to its urban northern regions occurred over more than 50 years, from 1916 to 1970.
The Great Depression hit Americans hard, but none harder than African Americans and the working poor. To Ask for an Equal Chance explores black experiences during this period and the intertwined challenges posed by race and class.
The Great Depression was a time of hardship for many Americans, but for the citizens of Harlem it was made worse by past and present discrimination.
In the 1920s, the South Side was looked on as the new Black Metropolis, but by the turn of the decade that vision was already in decline--a victim of the Depression.