1. Art and the Great Migration
A Webinar for American Transitions from Rural to Urban Life
Tracy Teslow
University of Cincinnati
July 7, 2011

2. The Great Migration

4. A segregated railroad depot waiting room in Jacksonville, Florida, 1921. State Archives of Florida

5. Black Family Arrives in Chicago from the South, ca. 1919
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

6. Macon, Ga April 2, 1918
To the Bethlehem Baptist Association reading in the Chicago Defender of your help securing positions I want to know if it is any way you can oblige me by helping me to get out there as I am anxious to leave here + everything so hard here I hope you will oblige in helping me to leave here ans[wer] at once to 309 Middle St. Mrs. J. H. Adams

7. “Times is Getting’ Harder”
by Lucious Curtis, 1940
Times is gettin' harder,
Money's gettin' scarce.
Soon as I get my cotton and corn,
I'm bound to leave this place.
White folks sittin' in the parlor,
Eatin' that cake and food,
black person’s way down to the kitchen,
Squabblin' over turnip greens.
Me and my brother was out.
Thought we'd have some fun.
He stole three chickens.
We began to run.
Soon as I get my cotton and corn
Cotton Pickers, Pulaski County, Arkansas, Ben Shahn, 1935

8. Art and the Paradox of African American Identity

9. “One ever feels his twoness—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body”
~ The Souls of Black Folk, 1903
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, ca. 1918

10. Photographs of African Americans:
Paris Universal Exposition, 1900

11. Types of American Negroes, Georgia, U.S.A., 1900 W.E.B. Du Bois
Displayed at the Universal
Exposition, Paris, 1900
Bazoline Estelle Usher

12. Types of American Negroes,
Georgia, U.S.A., 1900
W.E.B. Du Bois
Displayed at the Universal
Exposition, Paris, 1900
The home of an African American lawyer, Atlanta, Georgia
Photo by Thomas E. Askew
David Tobias Howard, an undertaker, his wife and mother, Atlanta, Georgia

13. The New Negro Movement:
Art and the Great Migration

14. ". Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era
"...Our problem is to conceive, develop, establish an art era. Not white art painting black...let's bare our arms and plunge them deep through laughter, through pain, through sorrow, through hope, through disappointment, into the very depths of the souls of our people and drag forth material crude, rough, neglected. Then let's sing it, dance it, write it, paint it. Let's do the impossible. Let's create something transcendentally material, mystically objective. Earthy. Spiritually earthy. Dynamic."

~ Aaron Douglas

15. Aaron Douglas

16. Aaron Douglas
An Idyll of the Deep South, Aspects of Negro Life Series, 1934

17. Aaron Douglas
Song of the Towers, Aspects of Negro Life Series, 1934

18. Archibald Motley, Jr. & William H. Johnson
Life Up North:
Archibald Motley, Jr. & William H. Johnson

19. Archibald Motley, Jr.
Black Belt, 1934

20. Archibald Motley, Jr.
Nightlife, 1943

21. William H. Johnson
Jitterbug V,
Street Life, Harlem,

22. Jacob Lawrence

23. The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence
#1 -- During the World War there was a great migration North by Southern Negroes

24. The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence
#3 -- In every town Negroes were leaving by the hundreds to go North and enter into Northern industry

25. The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence
#29 -- The labor agent also recruited laborers to break strikes which were occurring in the North.

26. The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence
#49 -- They also found discrimination in the North although it was much
different from that which they had known in the South.

27. The Migration Series, 1940-41, by Jacob Lawrence
#57 -- The female worker was also one of the last groups to leave the South.

28. Resources Books, for kids: Websites: Video:
The Great Migration: An American Story, paintings by Jacob Lawrence, New York: HarperCollins, 1993 (ages 8 & up)
John Duggleby, Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence, Chronicle Books, 1998 (ages 6-12)
The Harlem Renaissance, compiled by Karen Kuehner, Nextext, 2001 (grades 9-12)
Websites:
Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series, The Phillips Collection ~
The Jacob and Gwen Knight Lawrence Virtual Resource Center ~
Art and Life of William H. Johnson: A Guide for Teachers, Smithsonian Institution ~
History Matters (music, letters from the Great Migration) ~
Great Migration: Documents for the Investigation ~
Video:
“Up South: African American Migration in the Era of the Great War,” American Social History Productions, Inc., CUNY, 30 minutes ~
“Jacob Lawrence: an intimate portrait,” Public Media Home Vision, 1993
~ online at: