Submitted photoMembers of several chapters of the Buffalo Soldiers motorcycle clubs have been invited for the sixth annual Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Festival and Thomasville-Thomas County Public Safety Day.

THOMASVILLE — The 2019 Black History Month theme is “Black Migrations,” and the first community celebration commences with the sixth annual Buffalo Soldiers Heritage and Festival and Thomasville-Thomas County Public Safety Day on Saturday, Feb. 16, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Jack Hadley Black History Museum.

The museum, on the grounds of the Douglass High School alumni complex in the historic Dewey City neighborhood, is located at 214 Alexander St.

This is the third year the museum is inviting and collaborating with local public safety agencies, including the police department and sheriff’s office, city and county fire departments, Georgia State Patrol, 911, EMS and Gold Star Ambulance Service.

Motorcycle clubs from Tallahassee, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, and Panama City in Florida, Fort Rucker, Alabama and Columbus, Albany and Thomasville’s own Buffalo Soldiers 9th and 10th Cavalry have been invited to come and celebrate. It is also an educational day for youth and guests to hear stories from Buffalo Soldiers and local professionals in public safety agencies about their careers.

In his book “A Century of Negro Migration,” Carter G. Woodson argues that black migration discourse should more accurately begin in 1815. His position is based on the fact that blacks lived in the North and West in the early 19th century. In 1810, approximately 102,137 blacks lived in the North, while 3,454 lived in the Northwest Territory. This was attributed partly to Western expansion settlers who brought enslaved adolescents to help with labor. 

Another contributing factor to black migration in the U.S. was the Quakers’ prohibition of slavery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Thus, newly-freed slaves migrated to Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York and even Liberia through the American Colonization Society. 

Today, the topic of black migration in the U.S. is most commonly associated with emancipation and Reconstruction (1863-77), along with the Great Migration and the Second Great Migration (1915-70). During the Great Migration, 6 million blacks left the South and migrated North and West. Some of the most popular destinations included New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit. The black populations in these major cities grew 66 percent, 148 percent, 500 percent and 611 percent, respectively.

Many blacks found the notion the racial climate of the North was much better than the South was a lofty utopian ideal. This theme was so prevalent within literary discourse the historian Lawrence P. Jackson coined the term “indignant generation” to describe the unsettling experiences of African-Americans in the early 20th century. 

To read more about black migration, visit www.asalh.org.

To date this year, the Jack Hadley Black History Museum has scheduled 18 groups, 984 students and 70 teachers and adults from Thomas and surrounding counties.

For more on the museum, visit jackhadleyblackhistorymuseum.com.