Jacob Lawrence Migration Paintings Timeline

  • Painting 1

    During World War I there was a great migration north by southern African Americans.
  • Painting 20

    In many of the communities the black press was read with great interest. It encouraged the movement.
  • Panel 24

    Their children were forced to work in the fields. They could not go to school.
  • Painting 15

    There were lynchings.
  • Painting 16

    After a lynching the migration quickened.
  • Painting 17

    Tenant farmers received harsh treatment at the hands of planters.
  • Panel 42

    To make it difficult for the migrants to leave, they were arrested en masse. They often missed their trains.
  • Panel 29

    The labor agent recruited unsuspecting laborers as strikebreakers for northern industries.
  • Panel 44

    But living conditions were better in the North. (Compared to the South)
  • Panel 55

    The migrants, having moved suddenly into a crowded and unhealthy environment, soon contracted tuberculosis. The death rate rose.