Use this Lesson with the Langston Hughes, "I, Too" and "The Weary Blues," 1920 and 1925 Primary Source and the Andy Razaf (lyrics), Thomas "Fats" Waller and Harry Brooks (score), "Ain't Misbehavin'," Jazz and the Radio, 1929 Primary Source to show students how migration influence art and literature through the Harlem Renaissance movement. In this lesson, developed by and included with the permission of Teach Rock , students will analyze various accounts of the Great Migration to address the following question: How did the Great Migration spread southern culture and help give the blues a central place in American popular music?

Objectives:

• Students will examine the factors that prompted African Americans to migrate from the South to northern cities during the Great Migration, including the burdens of the sharecropping economy and racial discrimination
• Students will examine how the editors of the Chicago Defender newspaper encouraged African Americans in the South to seek relocation
• Students will examine songs by Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf that reflect and symbolically manage an African American experience of displacement
• Students will examine the role of Chicago’s Chess record label in popularizing an urban blues sound predicated on electrified instruments and ensemble playing

Access The Blues and the Great Migration and accompanying materials on TeachRock’s website.