“When an elder dies, a library burns to the ground.”

Have you ever wondered how your family came to be where it is today?

Where you live is no accident. It reflects a history shaped by a series of migrations—some forced, like slavery, and others made by choice, but often in search of freedom or fleeing oppression. From the shores of Senegal to the island of Haiti, from London to São Paolo, from South Africa to the American South, solidarity is the throughline that bonds all indigenous Africans and peoples of the African Diaspora. Our kinfolk spread wide, covering the globe in color and tradition.

In America, beginning during the early years of the twentieth century, Black families in the South migrated to the North, an uncertain existence waiting for them, in search of opportunity, dignity, and freedom from the fear of getting lynched at night. This movement was known as the Great Migration. It was vast, leaderless, and a chapter in the lives of six million Black Southerners who chose to leave the land of their forefathers to spread across America.

So many of the families leaving the South were fleeing daily acts of white supremacist terrorism. Regressive social studies curricula in states like Florida that whitewash the history of enslavement, Jim Crow laws, commonplace lynchings, and rampant racism in this country make it impossible for students to learn these stories that are central to understanding the role of systemic racism in the United States. 

Reference: Wilkerson, Isabel. The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Vintage Books, 2011.

TODAY’S PRACTICE: Discover your family’s migration story. 

This is a great opportunity to connect with an elder to learn more about how your family arrived where it is today. Film or record them as they tell the story or jot it down in your journal. 

To learn more about the Great Migration, watch the new PBS series Great Migrations: A People on the Move.