Creating Conversations

Allan deSouza was inspired by Jacob Lawrence’s 60-panel “Migration Series.”

The Migration Series explores the first wave of the Great Migration, the movement of millions of African-Americans from the South to the North between 1910-1940. While Lawrence’s paintings look at a historical migration within America, deSouza investigates a fictional migration to becoming American today.

The sun beats down on a field of dead crops.

Panel no. 13: The crops were left to dry and rot. There was no one to tend to them.

Two black tenant farmers bring crops to be weighed to a white foreman.

Panel no. 17: Tenant farmers received harsh treatment at the hands of planters.

Five people wait at a train station with their belongings. Two stand, while three sit.

Panel no. 21: Families arrived at the station very early. They did not wish to miss their trains north.

All images: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Casein tempera on hardboard, 12 x 18 in. Acquired 1942 © 2016 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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