The Great Migration of African Americans from the rural South to the urban North in the early 20th century was a pivotal social event in United States history, helping to set the stage for the modern civil rights movement. It was characterized by a massive exodus of African-Americans from the southern United States, the date of which is difficult to determine. Most scholars say it began at the start of World War I, in the 1910s, but that a larger migration began during World War II, and lasted through the Vietnamese period until the 1970s, during which African Americans left in unprecedented numbers. Nearly five million people left between 1941 and the late 1970s, and in doing so shaped their lives and those of their descendants. As with any such migration, the movement of people has changed significantly. People who had previously worked in the agricultural heartland were now at the heart of the American economy, and those who lacked political rights and influence were quickly gaining both. As African Americans from the South settled in northern cities, they made postwar black cities centers of innovation in music, literature, and art to create a new urban culture influential black culture, best exemplified by the Harlem Renaissance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essay The relocation of African Americans has radically transformed America's major cities, where they went from being a small minority to being a more than 40% of the population. northern cities known as "black metropolises", cities within cities. The experience of the Great Migration and these new cities gave rise to the artistic movement called the New Negro Movement, later known as the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem, New York, was one of the most prominent examples of such metropolises, a once all-white neighborhood that underwent a dramatic demographic shift. James Weldon Johnson called it “the flowering of black literature,” and it was indeed that; The Great Migration brought together authors and writers from racially stratified communities into cities where black culture was increasingly popular. Plays like those by Ridgely Torrence rejected the stereotypes of blackface and minstrel shows, instead showing African Americans as human as whites. Poets like Claude McKay and Langston Hughes all came together to shape the Harlem Renaissance; Without the Great Migration, it is entirely possible that the black population would have remained diminished and spread across the country where such unified communities could not have taken root. Significant cultural changes have not been limited to specific areas; writers, actors, musicians, artists have all had a major impact. Langston Hughes wrote like a jazz poet, ignoring the influences of white writers to create something with rhythm and meter never before seen. Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God was vibrant and astonishing in its rejection of the racial uplift agenda, which advocated improving the image of African Americans in society but stigmatized and suppressed the sexuality of black women. However, as Langston Hughes said, combating racial prejudice was secondary to "expressing our dark-skinned selves." Singers like.