Many people were ready to leave the South for a variety of reasons: a weak agricultural system that offered low wages and back-breaking work and little chance for advancement; repressive Jim Crow laws and a legal system that offered little outlet for social protest; and, in the years between 1900 to 1910, the highest number of lynchings in America's history. Those years experienced a record 846 reported lynchings. Of those, 754 were of blacks.
In the novel, the reader can see that the Great Migration is underway. There are many characters who travel north during the story. The first, of whom the reader is only shown a brief glimpse, is the father of Florence and Gabriel. In fact, the only information Florence tells about him is that he went North. "And not only her Father; every day she heard that another man or woman had said farewell to this iron earth and sky, and started on the journey north." Florence herself is the next to make the journey, followed by Ester. Later, Ester's grown son follows his mother's footsteps and dies in Chicago. Elizabeth and Richard move to New York to start their lives together. Gabriel, the last character to move north, brings the count to seven.
