On this date, journalist Emmett J. Scott published early reports highlighting the growing movement of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North. Though the Great Migration began gradually in the early 1910s, it gained significant momentum around this time—fueled by racial violence, segregation, and the lure of industrial jobs in Northern cities.

Over the next several decades, more than 6 million African Americans would migrate in waves, seeking better opportunities and shaping the cultural, economic, and political fabric of cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Philadelphia. Between 1910 and 1930 alone, over 1.5 million Black Southerners relocated.

This mass movement:

• Sparked the Harlem Renaissance and other cultural booms.

• Shifted political power in Northern states.

• Altered American demographics permanently.