Editing History of Pittsburgh (section)

===African Americans===
{{Further|Great Migration (African American)}}
The years 1916–1940 marked the largest migration of African Americans to Pittsburgh during the [[Great Migration (African American)|Great Migration]] from the rural South to industrial cities of the Northeast and Midwest. These migrants came for industrial jobs, education, political and social freedom, and to escape racial oppression and violence in the South. Migrants going to Pittsburgh and surrounding mill towns faced racial discrimination and restricted housing and job opportunities. The black population in Pittsburgh jumped from 6,000 in 1880 to 27,000 in 1910.  Many took highly paid, skilled jobs in the steel mills. Pittsburgh's black population increased to 37,700 in 1920 (6.4% of the total) while the black element in Homestead, Rankin, Braddock, and others nearly doubled. They succeeded in building effective community responses that enabled the survival of new communities.<ref>Joe W. Trotter, "Reflections on the Great Migration to Western Pennsylvania." ''Western Pennsylvania History'' (1995) 78#4: 153–158 [https://journals.psu.edu/wph/article/download/4502/4319 online].</ref><ref>Joe W. Trotter, and Eric Ledell Smith, eds. ''African Americans in Pennsylvania: Shifting Historical Perspectives'' (Penn State Press, 2010).</ref>
Historian Joe Trotter explains the decision process:
:Although African-Americans often expressed their views of the Great Migration in biblical terms and received encouragement from northern black newspapers, railroad companies, and industrial labor agents, they also drew upon family and friendship networks to help in the move to Western Pennsylvania. They formed migration clubs, pooled their money, bought tickets at reduced rates, and often moved ingroups. Before they made the decision to move, they gathered information and debated the pros and cons of the process....In barbershops, poolrooms, and grocery stores, in churches, lodge halls, and clubhouses, and in private homes, southern blacks discussed, debated, and decided what was good and what was bad about moving to the urban North.<ref>Trotter, "Reflections on the Great Migration to Western Pennsylvania," p 154.</ref>

The newly established Black communities nearly all endured, apart from Johnstown where blacks were expelled in 1923. Joe Trotter explains how the Blacks built new institutions for their new communities in the Pittsburgh area:
:Black churches, fraternal orders, and newspapers (especially the ''[[Pittsburgh Courier]]''); organizations such as the NAACP, Urban League, and Garvey Movement; social clubs, restaurants, and baseball teams; hotels, beauty shops, barber shops, and taverns, all proliferated.<ref>Trotter, "Reflections on the Great Migration to Western Pennsylvania," pp 156-57.</ref>

The cultural nucleus of Black Pittsburgh was Wylie Avenue in the [[Hill District]]. It became  an important jazz mecca because jazz greats such as [[Duke Ellington]] and Pittsburgh natives [[Billy Strayhorn]] and [[Earl Hines]] played there. Two of the Negro League's greatest baseball rivals, the [[Pittsburgh Crawfords]] and the [[Homestead Grays]], often competed in the Hill District. The teams dominated the [[Negro National League (1933–1948)|Negro National League]] in the 1930s and 1940s.<ref name="Galloway"/>