The Ending is Only Just the Beginning: Migration Series Panel NO. 60, Jacob Lawrence, “And the migrants kept coming”

Zipporah Dorsey

ARTH 207: 20th Century Art

August 21, 2020

*an excerpt

Jacob Lawrence was an African American man who told stories through his art, but also educated others as a professor. His work showcases a unique art style that depicts Black history to where Lawrence is able to tell stories of the past, inspire other artists, and continue to create art related to his life and those in it. Known for this work depicting the history of African Americans, his panel series, the “Migration Series”, tells the story of African Americans and their long journey of traveling from the South to the North. With this series having 60 panels of work, that showcases The Great Migration, Lawrence’s 60th panel, “And the migrants kept coming”, 1940-41 (Fig. 1) doesn’t end the story and history being depicted, it shows only just the beginning. As this individual piece highlights the continuous movement of African Americans, but concludes the panel, it portrays the history and travel of the relocation of African Americans from the South to the North from 1910-1970; however, it also shows the never ending and lost story of this historical movement.

Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Jacob Lawrence moved to Harlem in 1917 with his mother and sister when he was 13 and lived most of his Life in Harlem (the subject of many of his paintings).1 Considered by most art scholars, Lawrence is said to be the most accomplished African American painter of his generation.2 He passed away on June in 2000 in Seattle at the beautiful age of 83 years old, but his work will never die and continue to hold a huge legacy for him. Many of the paintings he would later create were executed from memories of his childhood experience, but one date remains firmly entrenched in Lawrence's memory, December 7, 1941. The day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the day the Downtown Gallery opened.