Unit Objectives
- Understand the interrelated causes of the Great Migration
- Place the Great Migration in time in relation to other events of the early 20th century U.S. history,
- Use GIS software to analyze demographic changes related to the Great Migration.
- Understand personal experiences of participants in the Great Migration by analyzing related primary documents.
Related National Standards
GIS Activities
GIS investigations are part of many of the activities in this unit. These investigations make use of ArcGIS Online, an internet software that runs on most browsers. If you do not have an an ArcGIS account and would like to have one you can sign up for a free personal account here.
The data and shapefiles in the various map layers are from:
Southern States
County and State Level Data
Shape files and census data from Minnesota Population Center. National Historical Geographic Information System: Version 2.0. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota 2011.
Additional Resources
Carole Marks, Farewell, We're Good and Gone: The Great Black Migration, (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989).
Farah Jasmine Griffin, "Who Set you Flowin’?" The African-American Migration Narrative, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995).
Isabel Wilkerson, The Warmth of Other Suns, (New York: Vintage Books, 2010).
Last modified in April, 2024 by Rick Thomas