Understanding the Great Migration through Art
INTRODUCTION
Between 1916 and 1970, approximately seven million African Americans left the rural South to settle in the
urban North. Slightly more than 500,000 of these migrants arrived in Chicago during these years. Pushed
out of the South by poverty, lack of economic opportunities, and the desire to escape the violence and
humiliation of Jim Crow segregation, and pulled to the North by employment opportunities and the chance
to live with some dignity, African Americans arrived in the city by the thousands. Discriminatory housing
practices confined Chicago’s burgeoning black community to a narrow strip on the South Side that became
known as the “Black Belt.” Competition between the migrants and European immigrants over labor and
housing heightened racial tensions in the city, and led to the famous Chicago race riot of 1919. Yet, AfricanAmerican migrants joined earlier black residents to build vibrant community institutions, harness collective
political power, and fight for equal rights and full citizenship.
“THIS BRONZE MONUMENT DEPICTS A MAN WEARING A SUIT MADE OF SHOE SOLES RISING FROM A MOUND OF
SOLES. THE SOLES, WORN AND FULL OF HOLES SYMBOLIZE THE OFTEN DIFFICULT JOURNEY FROM THE SOUTH TO
THE NORTH. IT COMMEMORATES ALL OF THE AFRICAN-AMERICAN MEN AND WOMEN WHO MIGRATED TO CHICAGO
AFTER THE CIVIL WAR.”
- ALISON SAAR, SCULPTOR
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
LESSON: THE GREAT NORTHERN MIGRATION
KEY TOPICS
Sculpture, migration, identity, segregation
OBJECTIVES
Students will be able to
a. critically analyze primary source documents
b. analyze a work of public art to derive its meaning
c. demonstrate an understanding of the experiences of African-American migrants to Chicago by creating
a work of art that symbolizes those experiences
SUMMARY
The following lesson allows students to examine the Great Migration of African Americans from the South
to the North in the early 20th century. Students will analyze primary source documents from the migration
period and read excerpts from St. Clair Drake and Horace Cayton’s landmark study, Black Metropolis, to
deepen their understanding of the push-pull factors that led thousands of African Americans to leave the
Jim Crow South. Analysis of primary source documents will also illustrate for students the discrimination
migrants faced once in the North. Students will analyze images of Alison Saar’s sculpture “Monument to
the Great Northern Migration,” located in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood, and construct their own
pipe cleaner sculpture that captures the migration experience. At the conclusion of the lessons, students
will understand the multiple reasons people migrated, the conflicts that developed, and the many social,
cultural, economic, and political contributions made by African Americans.
COMMON CORE STANDARDS MET BY UNIT
CC Grades 6-12: RH 1, 2
CC Grades 6-12: W 1, 4
CC Grades 6-12: RI 1, 2
CC Grades 6-12: WHST 1, 4
STATE GOALS AND STANDARDS MET BY UNIT
IL 16: A
IL 25: A
IL 18: A, B
IL 27: B
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
CC Grades 6-12: SL 1, 4
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
GETTING STARTED
MATERIALS
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Excerpts from Drake and Cayton’s Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City, Baltimore
Centerstage (http://www.centerstage.org/marainey/Digital-Dramaturgy/Chicago/Chicago--Growth-of-aMetropolis.aspx)
“Great Migration” entry from the Encyclopedia of Chicago (http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/
pages/545.html)
Computer/LCD projector
Primary source document packet (see Documents 4.a –4.h)
Image of Alison Saar’s “Monument to the Great Northern Migration” (see Image 4.i)
Read an Image (Appendix 3.a)/Think Like a Historian (Appendix 3.b)/worksheets (see Appendix 5)
Guided Reading worksheet (see Worksheet A)
Pipe cleaner instruction sheet (see Worksheet B)
Sample Rubric (see Appendix 2)
SUGGESTED TIME
Four days
VOCABULARY
Migration, de facto segregation, de jure segregation, push/pull factors, labor, rural, sharecropping
ACTIVITY 1: THINK-PAIR-SHARE
Day 1
The class will read handouts of the “Great Migration” entry from the Encyclopedia of Chicago (http://
encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/545.html ). The teacher may want to display the page where the
entry appears so that the class can view the primary source documents that accompany the entry including
interactive maps of the “Illinois Central Railroad Links to Chicago,” and of the “Southern Distribution of the
Chicago Defender, 1919.” After reading the article, students will be asked to write a response to the
following questions: “Did migrants find a Promised Land in Chicago? Why or why not?” Students should use
information from the reading to support their answers. After students have recorded their responses, they
will pair up with a classmate and share their responses. Students will take notes on the ideas they have
shared in their pairs. After pairs have had a chance to share, the teacher will ask pairs to share their
responses with the class.
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
ACTIVITIES (cont.)
ACTIVITY 2: PRIMARY SOURCE AND ART ANALYSIS
Day 2
Students will analyze images about the Great Migration and Chicago’s African-American community. The
documents extend the theme of “Chicago as the Promised Land” that students began to explore on Day 1.
Students will complete primary source analysis sheets for three of the images to deepen their
understanding of the forces that drove African Americans to migrate and the circumstances they faced
once arriving in Chicago.
Students will analyze Alison Saar’s “Monument to the Northern Great Migration” (Image 4.i). Students will
use the “Read an Image and Think Like a Historian” worksheet (Appendix 5) to analyze Saar’s work. The
teacher may ask students to react to Alison Saar’s description of her work: “This bronze monument depicts
a man wearing a suit made of shoe soles rising from a mound of soles. The soles, worn and full of holes,
symbolize the often difficult journey from the South to the North. It commemorates all of the AfricanAmerican men and women who migrated to Chicago after the Civil War.” Then they can consider these
questions: What other events or people do we choose to commemorate? What are other ways we publicly
remember people or events? Is public commemoration important? Why or why not?
ACTIVITY 3: GUIDED READING
Day 3
Students will read the excerpt of Drake and Cayton’s Black Metropolis about the Great Migration (http://
www.centerstage.org/marainey/Digital-Dramaturgy/Chicago/Black-Metropolis--The-Great-Migration.aspx).
They will complete the Guided Reading sheet (Worksheet B). Students should be prepared to discuss as a
class the final question at the end of the sheet, “What do you think is the most interesting/important thing
that someone should know about the Great Northern Migration? Why?”
ACTIVITY 4: PIPE CLEANER SCULPTURE
Day 4
Students will create a pipe cleaner sculpture in which they interpret the answer to the question, “What do
you think is the most significant thing about the Great Northern Migration?” An instruction sheet
(Worksheet C) provides the guidelines for the sculpture. After they have completed their sculptures,
students will write one to two paragraphs explaining what their sculpture represents, and why they
believe their sculpture represents Great Northern Migration experiences. Teachers can use the sample
rubric to assess the project (Appendix 2).
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES AND ENRICHMENT ACTIVITIES
Additional Resources
St. Clair Drake and Horace R. Cayton. Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1993 (original publication 1945).
James Grossman, “Chicago and the ‘Great Migration.’” Illinois Periodicals Online, Northeastern Illinois
University online at http://www.lib.niu.edu/1996/iht329633.html
Judith Wilson. “Down to the Crossroads: the Art of Alison Saar,” Third Text. No. 10, Spring 1990 (http://
negroartist.com/writings/Down%20to%20The%20Crossroads%20The%20Art%20of%20Alison%20Saar.pdf)
Enrichment Activities
Students can visit “Monument to the Great Northern Migration” by Alison Saar at Dr. Martin Luther King
Drive and 26th Place in Chicago. A map of landmarks of the Black Metropolis, (http://
www.blackmetropolisnha.com/uploads/Map1.pdf) provides the location of historic sites in the history of
black Chicago.
Students can visit the DuSable Museum of African American History, 740 E. 56th Place in Chicago, (http://
www.dusablemuseum.org/). The DuSable Museum offers exhibits about African and African-American
history, art and culture.
The South Side Community Art Center, (http://www.southsidecommunityartcenter.com/), founded in 1941
and supported by the Federal Art Project during the New Deal, features the work of African American
artists. The South Side Community Art Center is located at 3831 S. Michigan Ave. in Chicago.
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.a
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.b
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.c
‘After fifty years of sound napping, depending on the white southerner and his “cotton crop,” while members of the
Race are migrating to the northland, where every kind of labor is being thrown open to them, where sound houses are
obtainable for him to house his family and better schools to educate his children.’
Chicago Defender, ca. 1910
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.d
Chicago Defender, ca. 1915
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.e
Key:
1. Parks, boulevards
2. industry and railways
3. Germans
4. Swedes
5. Czechoslovakians
6. Poles and Lithuanians
7. Italians
8. Jews
9. Negros
10. mixed population
Halbwachs, Maurice (1984 [1932]). Chicago, experience ethnique. In Yves Grafmeyer & Isaac Joseph (Eds.), L'école de
Chicago: naissance de l'écologie urbaine (pp.279-327). Paris: Aubier Montaigne.
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.f
Chart reproduced from http://bentley.umich.edu/research/publications/migration/ch1.php found in
David Allan Levine, Internal Combustion The Races in Detroit 1915-1926,Greenwood Press, 1976.
“Jumping Rope on the Sidewalk of One of the Better Neighborhoods in the Black Belt, Chicago, Illinois,” 1941, Library
of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection, [LC-USF33-005163-M4 DLC ]
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.g
“Apartment Building
in the Negro Section
of Chicago, Illinois,”
1941, Library of
Congress, Prints &
Photographs
Division, FSA-OWI
Collection, [LC-DIGppmsca-01561 DLC ]
The Negro in Chicago; a study of race
relations and a race riot, by the Chicago
Commission on Race Relations. [(1922)]
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
DOCUMENT 4.h
The Negro in Chicago; a study of race relations and a race riot, by the Chicago Commission on Race
Relations. Image ID: 1217208
Negroes under protection of police leaving wrecked house in riot zone. ([1922])
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
IMAGE 4.i
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
WORKSHEET A
Excerpts from Drake & Clayton’s
Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City
Directions: Take notes (in your own words) on the information that relates to the guiding questions below.
GUIDING QUESTIONS
What factors pushed African
Americans out of the South?
What factors pulled African
Americans toward the North?
What role did the Chicago
Defender play in driving the
migration?
How did white Chicagoans
react to the arrival of the
migrants? Why?
What role did Chicago
newspapers play in raising
tensions about the migrants?
What role did housing play in
raising tensions about the
migrants?
What do you think is the most
important or interesting thing
to know about the Great
Northern Migration?
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center
NOTES
Understanding the Great Migration through Art
WORKSHEET B
Pipe Cleaner Sculpture Activity
Directions: Create a sculpture that represents what you think is significant, or most important about the
Great Migration of African Americans. Remember, art is open to interpretation. Be as creative as possible!
GUIDELINES
Your sculpture must express what you think is important to understand about the Great Migration (this
would be like a “thesis” in an essay).
You can only use three pieces of pipe cleaner to make your sculpture.
You can use up to three colors of pipe cleaner, but you should pick colors that support your interpretation
of the Great Northern Migration. (i.e.: red pipe cleaner to represent anger/violence, etc.)
Your sculpture must be creative and original.
You must provide one or two formal paragraphs that explain what your sculpture represents.
© 2012 by the Chicago Metro History Education Center