From the 1910s through the 1970s, Detroit became a destination for the Great Migrations as Black communities fled the Jim Crow South in search of freedom and opportunity in the North. As Detroit’s Black population grew from 40,000 in 1920 to 300,000 in 1950, with many seeking employment in the automotive and war industries, Black communities joined and formed organizations to navigate and resist northern style Jim Crow. Through efforts to secure employment opportunities, union membership, decent housing, quality education, and political power, Detroit became one of the nation’s major hubs of labor, civil rights, and Black Nationalist organizing in the 1930s-1950s. 

The second chapter, “Black Freedom Struggles in Post-War Era Detroit,” explores how Detroit’s swelling African American population organized for economic, political, and social empowerment in the city from the 1930s-50s. Click on the different sections of this chapter to learn about how Detroit’s Black communities navigated life in the Jim Crow North, organized for rights and power, and how this era of Black freedom struggles laid foundations for the emergence of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements in the 1950s-60s.