Depression in “The Promised Land”: The Chicago Defender Discourages Migration, 1929–1940

Abstract

Scholars have credited the Chicago Defender as being a major proponent of the northward movement of African-Americans during the First World War. However, there is very little scholarship on the Defender's commentary on the conditions of African-Americans over time in the so-called “promised land” of the North. This article shows that when the economic opportunities declined during the Great Depression, the Defender started discouraging this northward movement. This article further shows how a major voice for African-American civil rights discovered the many facets of oppression and realized that it must be fought on every front and in every region of the country.