Black Migration from the South to Chicago

Title: Black Migration from the South to Chicago
Type of Teaching: Unit Plan
Grade Level: Intermediate Grades 4th through 6th
Time Frame: Approximately Two Weeks
Subject: Social Studies with Language Arts Integration

Illinois State Board of Education Curriculum Standards

Teacher Information:

Tai Maria Basurto
St. Thomas of Canterbury
DePaul University
taibasurto@yahoo.com

Description: Students will explore the hardships faced by African Americans in the South in the early 1900’s and the perceived opportunities of the North. Students will critically examine historical documents and interpret information.

Technology: internet access
Category: Historical Analysis of Migration, U.S. History Assessment
Assessment Tool: Rubric

Lesson One: Background Information


• Teacher presents vocabulary

migration: the movement of persons from one locality to another
plantation: an estate where cash crops are grown on a large scale
sharecropper: small tenant farmer on a plantation who receives credit for seed, tools, living quarters, and food, who works the land, and who
receives an agreed share of the value of the crop minus charges
lynching: putting a person to death by mob action without due process of law
Jim Crowe laws: laws that enforced racial segregation
segregation: a social system that restricts people to separate institutions and facilities based on race
equality: a state of being considered the same
• Explanation of Jim Crowe laws, sharecropping, and the conditions for African Americans in the South in the early 1900’s
The following books are excellent resources for the teacher: Arnesen, Eric. Black Protest and The Great Migration: A Brief History
with Documents. Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2003. Grossman, James, R. Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners, and the
Great Migration. The University of Chicago Press, 1989. Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land: The Great Migration and How It
Changed America. Vintage Books, 1991.
• Explore
The History of Jim Crowe
http://www.jimcrowhistory.org/home.htm

• Journal Assignment: What were the conditions of sharecroppers in the South?
What do you think it was like to be the son or daughter of a Black sharecropper in Georgia?

Lesson Two: Motivation to Leave the South


• Further Explanation of Jim Crowe
• Examine pictures of sharecroppers and conditions in the South from the Library of Congress

Large Photographs and Situations


• Discuss the occurrence of lynching in the United States Use Time Line of African American History, 1901- 1925 in African- American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection from the Library of Congress http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/aap/timelin3.html
• Journal Assignment: Imagine you are a single Black man in Mississippi. What would motivate you to leave the only home you have ever known to go to the North? If you were a married Black man with a family, would your motivation be different or the same? Which of these two people risk more leaving his home?

Lesson Three: The Journey North


• The role of the Chicago Defender
• Read newspaper articles and letters written during the Great Migration
• Examine maps
Use Geography and Map Division, Library of Congress
• Use Chicago: Destination for the Great Migration in the African-American Mosaic from the Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam011.html
• Journal Assignment: Suppose you are a Black person from the South and are preparing to go North. How do you prepare for your journey?

Lesson Four: Northern Cities and Chicago


• Explore African American Life in the North
• Examine pictures of Black life in Chicago from the Library of Congress

Large Photographs and Situations

• Compare conditions in the South to the conditions in the North using the photos already viewed
• What was the Chicago Black Belt?
• Discuss Race Riots
• Journal Assignment: Suppose you are Black person from the South and have come North to escape racism and for better opportunities. What do you find in Chicago? Is it what you expected? What hardships do you face? Do you regret leaving your home in the South?

Lesson Five: Population Shifts

• Teacher explanation of census
• Internet Research
U.S. Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/
• Students will track the population of African Americans in the United States in the South and in the North during the early the 20th century.
• Use Migrations in the African- American Mosaic from the Library of Congress
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam008.html
• Journal Assignment: What motivated Black people to leave the South and go North? What attracted Black people to Northern cities?

Lesson Six: Jacob Lawrence

• Internet Research
Jacob Lawrence: Exploring Stories
http://www.whitney.org/jacoblawrence/index.html
• Use the following books as a resource:
Duggleby, John. Story Painter. Chronicle Books, 1998.
Lawrence, Jacob. The Great Migration: An American Story.
HarpersCollins Publishers, 1993.
• Journal Assignment: Choose one of Jacob Lawrence’s paintings from The Great Migration series. Explain the painting in detail. Write a short story to support the painting.