Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Photographs and Prints Division

Ben Shahn/Farm Security Administration

Between 1940 and 1970, approximately 933,000 African Americans migrated to Western states. More than one-third of this migration occurred in the 1940s alone. In comparison, only 49,000 African Americans had migrated West during the 1930s. The second wave of migrants came predominantly from Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.