The Great Migration generally refers to the massive internal migration between 1910 and 1940 of Black Indigenous + African Americans from the Southern United States to urban centers in other parts of the country, including Chicago, Detroit, New York City, and Philadelphia. The widely told perspective is that strict legislation limited immigration into the U.S. and brought about a shortage of labor in many industrial and manufacturing centers in the Northeast and Midwest. And so these cities became common destinations for Black “migrants”. But what would be attractive about leaving fresh air, fresh food, and beautiful land to move into cramped, deteriorating city conditions? The stories told by the census bureau and the like are lacking great detail. The truth is that legislation and life threatening events forced Black people off the land they owned and stewarded. Millions of acres were stolen.

Our family was just one of millions who underwent the Migration, and so today our story begins in a cramped city, in the North.

“Start where you are. Start now.” My sister and I were discussing our family’s pending relocation to the region where our predecessors stewarded land before the Great Migration. We made this decision for a number of reasons; a new world is emerging from the ruins of the consumption economy. It is time to return to the land.