Five million African Americans moved from the rural South to the urban North between 1915 and 1970. It was one of the largest internal, peacetime migrations in history. Many traveled a route dubbed the blues highway after the music of those fleeing poverty and repression.
Today the blues highway has new exits in the suburbs, and some African Americans are even heading back to the South.
What is the next stop, the next step for race relations in the United States?
Read Charles E. Cobb’s essay and share your thoughts in our forum.
You can also read Cobb’s “Traveling the Blues Highway,” reproduced from April’s NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
See photographs of stops along the blues highway by William Albert Allard in our Visions Gallery.
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