Causes of the Migration. When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, less than 8% of the African American population lived in the Northeastern or Midwestern United States. By 1900, about 90% of African Americans still lived in Southern states.
The Great Migration was the mass movement of about five million southern blacks to the north and west between 1915 and 1960. During the initial wave the majority ofmigrants moved to major northern cities such as Chicago, Illiniois, Detroit, Michigan, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and New York, New York.