CHICAGO CROSSING URBAN BORDERS The New Media Classroom Borough of Manhattan CC July 10 - 14, 2000

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OVERVIEW: Spurred on by the decline in cotton production, an increase in lynchings and other forms of racial violence, and the recruitment of African Americans by northern industries, the "Great Migration" of sharecroppers and wage workers from the rural South created large African American populations in New York, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, and other urban centers in the North and Midwest.  Newspapers, like the Chicago Defender, served as a forum for African-Americans to share information between North and South.  African American sleeping car porters, who traveled freely throughout the South, distributed the Defender throughout the region.  The Defender was read aloud in homes and in barber shops, on street corners and in churches.  Southern African-Americans sent letters to the Defender seeking information about opportunities, housing and conditions up North.

OBJECTIVES: Students will draw on primary documents (maps, prints, photographs, letters, research reports) to understand the social, economic, and political factors that "pushed" African Americans out of the South and that "pulled" them toward the North.

THEMES: Migration, role of Black churches and Black Press, labor

SKILLS: Primary document analysis, Point-of-view writing

The African-American Mosaic: A Library of Congress Resource Guide for the Study of Black History and Culture
http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam001.html

"Sir I Will Thank You with All My Heart": Seven Letters from the Great Migration
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/541b-Letters.html

"We Tho[ugh]t State Street Would Be Heaven Itself": Black Migrants Speak Out
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/text/548a-Johnson.html

Step One: Background Research into the "Great Migration" to Chicago (20 mins)

Browse the "Migration" section of the African-American Mosaic and read the pages on Nicodemus and Chicago.

• What conclusions can you draw about Nicodemus and Chicago as destinations for rural blacks intent on leaving the South?
• What do the manuscripts, maps, prints, and photographs in the on-line exhibition suggest about similarities and differences in the motivations and experiences of the migrants to these two places?

[You can record your observations either on a sheet of paper or in a Word document.]

Step Two: Partner Research (20 mins)

One person should investigate the motivations of the migrants (Part A) while the other member of the pair explores the experiences of those who relocated to Chicago Part B).

Read the seven letters sent to the Chicago Defender in 1917. As you read the letters, keep the following questions is mind:

• What do the letters suggest about the motivations of those who sought to leave the South?
• What do the letters suggest about the dreams the migrants had for life in the urban North or Midwest?
• What do the letters suggest about the process of migration that enabled blacks to leave the South?

Read the summaries of interviews with migrants to Chicago conducted by Charles Johnson, research investigator for the Chicago Urban League. As you read Johnson's summaries, keep the following questions in mind:

• How well did Chicago meet the expectations of African Americans who left the South during the Great Migration? In what ways were migrants satisfied with life in Chicago? In what ways were they disappointed?
• What challenges did they face upon arriving at their destination?
• What strategies did they develop to survive in Chicago?

Step Three: Summary Writing Assignment (20 mins)

Share your observations about the documents you read with your partner. Be sure to identify both major opportunities and obstacles in Mississippi and Chicago. Using information from the Up South video, the Viewer's Guide, and the on-line resources you examined in this activity, outline a letter from a Mississippi migrant-Chicago resident to Robert S. Abbott, editor of the Chicago Defender. In the outline of your letter, summarizie the differences between life in Mississippi and in Chicago.

The Black Press: Soldiers Without Swords
http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/

Read biographies of Chicago journalists Robert S. Abbott and Ida B. Wells and the full transcript of Stanley Nelson's film The Black Press for more information about the role of the Black press in the migration of Southerners to Chicago.

The African American Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ohshtml/aaeohome.html

Use "Mississippi" and "Chicago" as keywords in "Search by Keyword" function to identify additional manuscript and printed text and images that describe the experiences of African Americans in Mississippi and Chicago.

Meet with others who used these resources to share insights, ideas, and reflections on your experience of doing this activity. Begin by briefly sharing your ideas for the presentations and then discuss the activity, using the following questions as prompts:

• What could students learn from this activity about the migration of African Americans to the Midwest in the post-Reconstruction era? What kinds of background information would students need to effectively engage in this activity?
• Would this activity, or some variation of it, work in your classroom or site? How would you reshape it for your audience? How would you combine it with other resources or sequence it with other lessons?
• What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of this activity? Is it a good vehicle for developing student skills in inquiry, exploring primary sources, and developing arguments?
• How would you describe the pedagogy (or principles of teaching/learning) that informs this activity? What aspects of the activity help to make it effective? What skills and modes of thinking does it support? Do the electronic resources suit the assignment's goals? What can we learn from this activity about the kinds of inquiry assignments that work best when using new media?
• How might this activity fit into a unit about the Great Migration?

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