Jacob Lawrence and the Migration Series

The migrants arrived in great numbers - Panel 40

"Having no Negro history  makes the Negro people feel inferior to the rest of the world...I didn't do it just as a historical thing., but because I believe these things tie up with the Negro today." 

Jacob Lawrence 1940

This quote sprang out at me from the wall of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). It is the reason that I need to start writing the stories of growing up in Cape Town during the 1960's and '70's. I was inspired by the simplicity of Lawrence's series of 60 paintings which records a significant era in American history.

One-Way Ticket: Jacob Lawrence's Migration Series and Other Visions of the Great Movement North is currently on at the MOMA as part of a programme exploring the legacy of the Great Migration and its impact on American culture. From 1915 to 1970, almost six million black people fled the rural South for northern and western cities in search of a better life, thereby indelibly altering the demographics of the USA.

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) grew up in Harlem, New York but both his parents had been part of the mass relocation from the impoverished South to the urban, industrialised cities. He was greatly influenced by the colour and vibrancy of the community in which he lived and set about recording the songs, stories and experiences of his parents' generation through his art. 

By the time he was 23 he had completed the paintings which make up the Migration series. In 1941, at the height of racial segregation in the country, he was the first African American to have his work exhibited at the MOMA. 

A long table with a row of tablets giving access to a multi-media website, occupied the centre of the exhibition room. It soon attracted a group of school children tasked with a summer project of choosing their favourite painting to write a poem about...21st century technology providing the bridge to history. 

                                 

This painting illustrates how effectively Lawrence has captured the loss and suffering brought about by the human rights abuses during this period of American history. It's what he has left out of the picture which is most striking. 

The exhibition is on until 7 September. 

View the Migration Series here 
Image from Migration Series from MoMa website, click here 

Walking to Connecticut

It's been a while since I travelled to the USA, as mentioned in my last blog, and I'd forgotten about the effects of a six-hour time difference. It didn't take too long to settle in once we arrived at my friends' house in a village on the border of New York and Connecticut states, though. It helped that I could put on my tackies and walk across state lines...here are some photos of rural America taken on our many walks...

We arrived on the Independence Day weekend, so had the opportunity to soak up the American way at a barbecue, where teenage girls frolicked in the pool, impromptu games of soccer were played on the lawn and the noises of fireworks and college kids home for the summer were punctuated by the thwack of a baseball in a catcher's mitt. Desserts of peach cobbler, blueberry pie and other cakes dazzled with sprays of stars and stripes in red white and blue.

flags everywhere...even in the middle of a field

The jet lag was more of a killer coming back home, hence the delay in posting, but look out for more from "the greatest country in the world" (as overheard at the barbecue). 

I am off to the USA next week. It's been eight years since my last visit and I am looking forward to catching up. I thought I would share some impressions from our last visit (2007) with my children, aged 14 and 10.

As soon as we stepped out of the taxi-cab, we were assailed by neon lights and sky-high billboards screaming for attention from entire sides of buildings. Electronic adverts for Foot Locker, Swatch, Virgin Mobile and Lucky Brand jeans, flickered in competition with announcements for Dancing with the Stars, Ultimate Fighting Championships and Stomp.

Towers of glass and concrete intersected at multi-lane crossroads of streaming yellow taxis, thick crowds of humans, blinding lights and the noise of a city on the go. I was reminded of how cosmopolitan the people in New York were. They appeared to have come from all over the world, each with a different dream. They were quirky with wild hairstyles, coiffed and business-like, strange, daring, downright weird, designer-heeled, sneaker-wearing, grey and colourful. No wonder people were prompted to do anything to be noticed, like don cowboy boots and a hat to play guitar naked in the traffic.

On our first trip with my daughter 13 years earlier, we’d been on our way down Fifth Ave, when we noticed a crowd gathering on the sidewalk, at the traffic lights opposite Van Cleef and Arpels. The large woman’s loud yellow shirt and gaudy floral tights were enough to cause a stir but it took me a few moments to realise that it was the python she had draped around her shoulders which was gathering attention.

New Yorkers, with mobiles glued to the sides of their faces, briefcases in hand, strode purposefully along sidewalks or streamed across the road, in obeisance to the flashing “Walk-Don’t Walk” signals. I recalled how curious a similar sight of businessmen accessorised with mobile phones had been on our visit in 1994. Two cell phone network providers, Vodacom and MTN, had only just been granted licences to operate in South Africa. We were a long way off from embracing cell phone technology and it seemed strange to me then that it could be such an indispensable part of American lives.

"This is just like in the movies,” my daughter remarked, as she slowly turned around on the sidewalk to take in the familiar sights. America was in our living room every day. This was where movies were made. She knew what Americans looked like, how they talked, hailed taxis, ate, ordered coffee, and fell in love. She thought all telephone calls started with “area code 555” and recognised the sound of police sirens. I’d fought to limit their exposure to television and find the balance with reading and outdoor activities, and yet she could rattle off names and intimate details of a string of actors. I joked that if her school work could be made into a movie, she'd be top of her class.  

The extract above is from my MA thesis.

Image by Gail Lindgren from http://www.freeimages.com/