 It was much larger and of a different character than the first Great Migration (1916–1940), where the migrants were mainly rural farmers from the South and only came to the Northeast and Midwest.In the Second Great Migration, not only the Northeast and Midwest continued to be the destination of more than 5 million African Americans, but also the West as well, where cities like Los Angeles, Oakland, Phoenix, Portland, and Seattle offered skilled jobs in the defense industry.Most of these migrants were already urban laborers who came from the cities of the South.