The Great Migration Narrative: Black Storytelling in/across Time, Space, and Generations

Between 1910 and 1970, approximately 6 million Black Americans moved from the Southern region of the United States to cities in the Northeast, Midwest, and West Coast. Some called it a "forced exodus" from a Jim Crow South plagued by racial-economic discrimination and mob violence against Black southerners. Broadly, this period is referred to as The Great Migration, defined not only by what Black Americans escaped, but by what they were searching for at the time: more jobs, better housing, freedom of movement, and a new quality of life. At the heart of this course is a question: did they find what they were looking for? Throughout the semester, we will read historical sources and literary fiction birthed from the Great Migration, from those who made and imagined the journey, those living with the possibilities and consequences of the journey, and those writing about the journey anew, more than a century after the exodus began. This course is reading intensive and will include three novels and one play. Assignments include a reading journal for the duration of the course and a creative project for the final.