The Great Migration Simulation
Wow! We had an amazing day learning about the The Great Migration. The Captain community organized 8 different stations in which our students rotated through learning about this important movement in our history. We had parent volunteers, administrators, and teachers come together to grow our students understanding of the history of United States.
Unfortunately, I was so engrossed in the simulation that I did not take pictures. However, we do have.....
Questions for the dinner table:
Why did African Americans from the South head north during The Great Migration?
What were some of the cities in the North that many African American people went to during The Great Migration?
What is soul food? Why is soul food important in the history of many black people?
Who was Louie Armstrong? Langston Hughes? Jacob Lawrence?
What was your job in the Great Migration? Did you have money on the trip? Why type of housing did you have?
When thinking about our five stances (persistence, resilience, empathy, optimism, and flexibility), what the people of The Great Migration Show?
Background knowledge:
The Great Migration was the movement of 6 million African Americans out of the rural Southern United States to the urban Northeast, Midwest, and South that occurred between 1916 and 1970. Until 1910, more than 90 percent of the African-American population lived in the American South. In 1900, only one-fifth of African-Americans living in the South were living in urban areas. By the end of the Great Migration, 53 percent of the African-American population remained in the South, while 40 percent lived in the North, and 7 percent in the West, and the African-American population had become highly urbanized.
Today's Great Migration Simulation kicks off our student of African American in history. Unfortunately, many of you share my similar history of learning mostly about history through only the eyes of the white population. During our social studies unit, we will learn about famous African American inventors, artists, scientists, and musicians. Questions at home can focus not only on the contributions and character of these great North Americans, but why they were important for the creation of the country that we live in today.