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Kendra D. Boyd, Assistant Professor of History, Rutgers University

The story of the Great Migration often overlooks Black businesses that built Detroit

Detroit South Carter G Woodson North
The flourishing Black business district in Detroit, Mich., photographed in 1942. Arthur S. Siegel via the Library of Congress, CC BY-ND

Black businesses were essential to facilitating the Great Migration of African Americans out of the South between the 1910s and 1960s. Yet, the traditional narrative of the migration as a movement of laborers seeking high-wage jobs obscures the history of African Americans who moved north or west seeking entrepreneurial opportunities.

This story is featured in my book, “Freedom Enterprise: Black Entrepreneurship and Racial Capitalism in Detroit,” which will be published April 8, 2025.

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