The Journey Begins Here

Welcome to Migrant Voices…

This website is dedicated to illuminating Pittsburgh’s place in the Great Migration through the perspectives of Black migrants.  Drawn by the promise of good jobs and greater freedom, from 1915 to 1930 over a million African Americans moved from rural communities in the South to urban industrial centers in the North, including Pittsburgh.  This opening phase of the Great Migration saw the Steel City’s Black community increase from about 25,000 to 55,000, making it the fifth largest in the nation.

Despite Pittsburgh’s prominent role in the story of the Great Migration, accessing historical records about it can prove challenging.  As a graduate student in 2014, I encountered three separate collections of interviews with Black migrants.  Repositories in Pittsburgh held two of them, and the state archives in Harrisburg housed another.  Originally recorded in the 1970s, these collections provided rare and valuable glimpses into migrants’ lives and perspectives.  Yet they were largely inaccessible to the public.  Only a handful of scholars even knew the recordings existed, and listening to them required physical presence in the archives.  For the most part, then, migrants’ voices went unheard. This website makes these voices audible and serves as a central hub of information on Pittsburgh and the Great Migration.