1. Please pick up: the hand out on the front table. Please get out: Your sketch books.

2. Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1917, Jacob Lawrence emerged as one of America's leading figurative artists and the first to document the history of African Americans through widely- viewed and influential artworks.

3. Lawrence and his family moved to Harlem in 1924, where he experienced the vibrancy of black intellectual, cultural, and artistic life in what was seen as the Harlem Renaissance.

4. The Great Migration series communicates the struggle, strength, and perseverance of African Americans who, between 1900 and 1940, moved from the agricultural communities of the South to the industrial cities of the North and Midwest in search of a better life.

6. The Migration Series was exhibited at Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery and in 1942 began a two-year national tour. As the first African American to join Edith Halpert's Downtown Gallery, Lawrence found himself living in two different worlds. For the rest of his life he would struggle between his experiences as an African American and his acceptance in the white art community.

7. The First Wave of the Great Migration (1916-1919) – "Northern industries offered Southern blacks jobs as workers and lent them money, to be repaid later, for their railroad tickets. The Northbound trains were packed with recruits." © Jacob Lawrence

8. The First Wave of the Great Migration "Around the time of WWI, many African- Americans from the South left home and traveled to cities in the North in search of a better life." © Jacob Lawrence

9. The First Wave of the Great Migration "For African- Americans the South was barren in many ways. There was no justice for them in courts, and their lives were often in danger." © Jacob Lawrence

10. The First Wave of the Great Migration "Life in the North brought many challenges, but the migrants' lives had changed for the better. The children were able to go to school, and their parents gained the freedom to vote." © Jacob Lawrence