Blog Post 6: Jacob Lawrence - The Great Migration

The book I chose for this week was The Great Migration by Jacob Lawrence. This book deals with several social issues. The first and most important issue was the great migration of African Americans from the sharecropping south to the cities of the north around the time of World War I. Artist Jacob Lawrence, “wanted to show just what it cost to ride [those trains]. Uprooting yourself from one way of like to make your way in another involves conflict and struggle. But out of the struggle comes a power and even beauty”.

Jacob Lawrence was a famous painter in the black community. His personal connection to the theme of migration comes from his family’s story of their own journey north: “’And the Migrants kept coming’ is a refrain of triumph over adversity. My family and others left the south on a quest for freedom, justice, and dignity”. His mother was from Virginia and his father was from South Carolina. They met somewhere along their journey north and Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey. He moved around a lot himself as a child before finally settling in Harlem New York City in 1930.

The Great Migration was a mass “exodus of African Americans from their homes and farms in the south to the northern industrial cities” in search of a better life and more opportunity. The book gives the reader background on how the migration began providing historical context and painting a picture of the dismal conditions in both the north and the south at the time the movement began.

On one page, the author depicts the racial injustices that took place in the south. He chose four images. The first is a white judge trying two black defendants. The first word that comes to mind when I see this is power (or rather imbalance/abuse of that power). The second is an African American sitting not too far away from a noose hanging from a tree. The first word that came to mind was fear. The third painting is a limp woman sitting at a table next to an empty mixing bowl. This reminded me of despair. The fourth photo was of African American workers bringing their bags of crops (probably cotton) to a white man to have them weighed and priced. This reminded me of submission. This page stood out most to me because I was curious as to how the artist would choose to depict such “heavy” historical concepts and imagery to children. I asked myself, if I were a child reading thi, how would I know that the tone was somber and the events were unfortunate? The creative use of levels, color palette and body language subtly express the despair and inequality. I would definitely recommend this book. Although it is a bit melancholy, such is much of African American history. The author tastefully addresses the subject without being overly graphic or morose.