An African-American family leaves Florida for the North during the Great Depression.

An African-American family leaves Florida for the North during the Great Depression. / MPI/Getty Images

The release of Smithsonian Magazine's Black in America issue coincides with the opening of the new National Museum of African American History and Culture. While many civil rights activists stood up to the oppression in the Jim Crow South, others fled to different parts of the country. By 1970, around six million blacks made the trip. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson of Atlanta writes about this mass exodus in this month's issue of Smithsonian Magazine. 

 

Tags: Great Migration  Isabel Wilkerson  Atlanta  Georgia