 |
The Migration of the Negro, panel 58, 1940-41. Casein tempera on hardboard, 12 x 18 in. (30.5 x 45.7 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of Mrs. David M. Levy
Artwork © Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence, courtesy of the Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation
INFO
After Reconstruction, southern educational facilities were segregated and schools for blacks were poorly maintained, meagerly equipped, and overcrowded. In 1916, The United States Bureau of Education found that annual per capita spending for education in southern states averaged $10.32 for whites and $2.89 for blacks.1
Many southern blacks migrated to the North in search of better educational opportunities for their children. Although the school system in the North was also segregated, schools for blacks had better equipment and more staff than their southern counterparts. Northern states also had compulsory education laws, which encouraged students to stay in school rather than to drop out and work as southern blacks often did. Nearly twice as many black students completed high school in the North compared to the South.2
At the same time that Lawrence explored the false promises of the North, some of his Migration Series paintings present the hope for something better: greater access to education, greater work opportunities, and the freedom to vote. In this image, Lawrence composed the classroom environment as a "landscape" where the importance of education and growth is emphasized, especially for girls.
LOOK
How has Lawrence communicated the importance of education in this image?
What connection does Lawrence make between education and growth?
Why do you think Lawrence chose to portray three girls writing on the chalkboard?
Extend this scene beyond the frame. What would you see?
How would you compare this image to a landscape?
EXPLORE
Think about your own classroom and school.
What does your classroom environment or "landscape" look like?
What facilities do you have?
For example: do you have desks? Blackboards? Computers?
What else do you wish you had? Why?
Why do some schools have more facilities than others?
• Draw three pictures of yourself at different stages of your education. Do you remember your first day of school? How have you changed since then? Write captions below your pictures.
• Draw, paint, or photograph an element or detail of your classroom in a horizontal landscape format. Use this classroom landscape as a background to put yourself in the picture. If you like, include a couple of your classmates.
1. Carole Marks, Farewell, we're good and gone: the Great Black Migration (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989), p. 145.
2. Spencer Crew, Field to Factory: Afro-American Migration 1915-1940 (Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institute, 1987), p. 59.
