The Great Migration and Harlem Renaissance

Great Migration

Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series

Open Ended

Do Now: What are the challenges people or families face when moving to a new place?

Week in Review

• Great Migration - mass movement of Black Americans from the rural south to cities in the north (1916-1970)

• Black Americans were facing segregation, discrimination, low wages, violence, and denial of basic rights like voting.

• Moved away from the south to cities throughout the country in the hopes of escaping these laws and having better opportunities elsewhere.

• Later this week! Effects of the Great Migration (Harlem Renaissance, urban race riots/massacres)

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Multiple Choice

True/False: Once Black Americans migrated to the north, they no longer faced racism or discrimination.

• True

• False

Primary Source - Migration Letters

• As you read, think about why these letters are being written and who they might be sent to.

• Think about what the people are asking for and what their motivation is for finding new life.

• Think about what their current situation is and what they hope their situation in the north would be.

Migration Letters

"Doubtless you have learned of the great exodus of our people to the north and west from this and other southern states. I wish to say that we are forced to go when one things of a grown man wages is only fifty to seventy five cents per day for all grades of work. He is compelled to go where there is better wages and sociable conditions, believe me." (Alabama 1917)

"I Read in the Defender where you could furnish information Regarding work on employment. if you can secure two Passes or transportation I will come up here at once any kind of work we are able Bodied it don’t make any difference from a Railroad to a waterBoy if you can’t scure them for us." - (Arkansas 1917)

Migration Letters

"I find it my Duty to write you my whereabouts also family, I am glad to say Family and myself are enjoying fine health. wish the same of you and your dear wife. Well I can say the people in my section are very much torn up about East St. Louis. Representive col men of Chicago was in conference with Governor he promise them that he would begin investigation at once tell Sister Hayes my wife Says She will write her in a few days." (Indiana, 1917)

"this is somewhat a letter of information I am a colored Boy aged 15 years old and I am talented for an artist and I am in search of some one will Cultivate my talent I have studied Cartooning therefore I am a Cartoonist and I intend to visit Chicago this summer and I want to keep in touch with your association and too from you knowledge can a Colored boy be an artist and make a white man's salary up there I will tell you more and also send a flew samples of my work when I rec an answer from you." - (Texas 1917)

Multiple Select

According to these letters, what were migrants in the Great Migration hoping to find in northern cities? (Check all that apply before submitting)

• Better paying work

• Less focus on education

• More opportunities for work

• Chance to work on art and expression

• Less time for religious life

Open Ended

Exit Ticket: Read the following "migration letter." What are the conditions the author is facing? What is the author's reason for wanting to migrate? What does this letter reveal about the Great Migration?

"I am writeing to you all asking a favor of you all. I am a girl of seventeen. School has just closed I have been going to school for nine months and I now feel like I aught to go to work. And I would like very very well for you all to please forward me to a good job. but there isnt a thing here for me to do, the wages here is from a dollar and a half a week. What could I earn Nothing. I have a mother and father my father do all he can for me but it is so hard. A child with any respect about her self or his self wouldnt like to see there mother and father work so hard and earn nothing I feel it my duty to help." (Louisiana 1917)

"The author of this letter is facing . . . This letter tells us that . . . "