US History

The Emergence of Modern America (1890-1930)

African Americans

Migration

This collection uses primary sources to explore the Great Migration.

A lynching announcement from New Orleans, 1919.

An excerpt from an 1895 printing of “Why is the Negro Lynched?” one of the final essays written by Frederick Douglass before his death. 

An excerpt from *The Negro: The Southerner’s Problem* by Thomas Nelson Page, 1910. 

A photograph of a Jim Crow rail car “for Negroes only,” Fayetteville, NC, 1929.

*Employment of Negroes in Agriculture*, an oil painting by Earle Richardson, 1934.

Cotton sharecroppers in Georgia in a photograph by Dorothea Lange, 1937.

A painting of the Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence, 1917.

A map of the migration patterns of African Americans from 1900 to 1929.

An excerpt from *Negro Migration in 1916-1917*, a report by the U.S. Department of Labor, Division of Negro Economics, 1919. 

An excerpt from *A Century of Negro Migration* by Carter G. Woodson, 1918. 

A photograph of an African American family arriving in Chicago after migrating from the rural South, 1922.

An excerpt from *The Industrial Condition of the Negro in the North*, 1906. 

A 1922 photograph by Carter G. Woodson captioned “A result of the migration. A Negro teacher with pupils of both races.”

A 1922 photograph from Chicago captioned “Negro women employed on power machines in a large apron factory.”

An excerpt from *Chicago Race Riots*, a 1919 analysis of the race riots in Chicago during the “Red Summer.” 

Questions

1. Based on the [lynching announcement](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/524), the excerpt from [Douglass’s essay](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/525), and the excerpt from [Page’s book](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/526), explain the “Negro Problem” at the turn of the twentieth century. How did lynching and other forms of racial violence serve as a response to the “Negro Problem”? 
2. What were the causes of the Great Migration? What was the biggest factor in the migration of African Americans from the South to the North and Midwest? What were the most popular cities to which African Americans migrated during this era? Use evidence from the items in this set to answer.
3. According to the excerpt from [*The Industrial Condition of the Negro in the North*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/535) and the excerpt from [*Chicago Race Riots*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/538), what were some of the challenges African Americans faced in the North? 
4. In what ways does [*Chicago Race Riots*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/538) reflect the ideology of “separate but equal”?
5. What inferences can you make from the [map of the migration patterns](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/531) of African Americans?

Activity

1. Teachers can group images as a starting point for analysis. Ask one group of students to compare and contrast [*Employment of Negroes in Agriculture*](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/528) and [Dorothea Lange’s photograph](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/529). What is revealed about the duality of the experience of African American sharecroppers? What is revealed about the duality of the South? Consider the positions of the bodies in each image. What message is conveyed through the bodies and facial expressions of the people represented in each image? 
Ask another group of students to compare and contrast the [Jacob Lawrence painting](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/530) and the [photograph of an African American family](http://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-great-migration/sources/534) just arrived in Chicago. How are migrants dressed in both images? How does their attire reflect their attitudes about migrating to the North? Both images are framed in such a way that the people fill the entire frame; what feeling or mood does this elicit in the viewer? What are some the messages the artists convey by framing their works in such a way?  After brainstorming and discussion, students should present the images and their analysis to the larger class.

2. Ask students to choose one of the images in this set and write a short story from the point of view of the subjects in the work. Students can write their narrative from the point of view of a group or single person. Ask students to use the information they have learned from the other documents in this primary source set to help construct the narrative. 

Teaching Guide: Exploring the Great Migration

Resources

1. [The Great Migration](http://www.inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm;jsessionid=f830862791451498201301?migration=8&bhcp=1), In Motion: The African American Migration Experience, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. 
2. [Chicago and the Great Migration](http://dcc.newberry.org/collections/chicago-and-the-great-migration), The Newberry. 
3. ["Sir I Will Thank You with All My Heart": Seven Letters from the Great Migration](http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5332/), History Matters. 

Overview

The turn of the twentieth century is often referred to as the nadir of race relations in the United States. Jim Crow laws, lynchings, and other forms of racial violence plagued the southern region of the country. Moreover, the cotton industry was severely affected by the boll weevil, a cotton-eating insect; the weevils’ consumption of cotton crops hurt the southern economy and eliminated many of the agricultural jobs held by African Americans. Consequently, the South became a place of economic and racial turmoil, and African Americans were desperate to find some relief. The promise of jobs in northern factories during World War I provided African Americans an opportunity to escape the harsh realities of the South. Between 1910 and 1930, approximately 1.6 million African Americans left the South to pursue opportunities in the Northern and Midwestern states. This exodus is known as the Great Migration, and was the first phase of an African American migration that would continue until 1970. 

English

The Great Migration

great-migration_06_46f34d3b98cd30d06fad573faf6e972b.jpg

Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division and New Georgia Encyclopedia via Digital Library of Georgia.

Lange, Dorothea, “Sharecroppers, Greene County,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/e13186ca0fcab7084356b3855132c1b9.

Cotton sharecroppers in Georgia in a photograph by Dorothea Lange, 1937.

Cite this item

Tips for Students

Item 6 of 15 in the Primary Source Set The Great Migration