Lawrence’s bare cabin brings to mind early sociological reports on the depletion of African-American towns and neighborhoods throughout the South during the Great Migration. The effect was particularly dramatic in the Black Belt, which was composed of agricultural areas in South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana where, as of 1910, more than forty percent of the population was black. Chicago-based sociologist Charles S. Johnson’s 1917 report on the repercussions of the swift exodus in Mississippi told of hundreds of abandoned homes in Greenville, deserted streets in Jacksonville, and shuttered churches and schools elsewhere in the state. As their social networks collapsed, the motives for blacks to remain in the South dissipated. “If I stay here any longer I’ll go wild,” one woman from a small Mississippi town tells Johnson. “Every time I go home I have to pass house after house of all my friends who are in the North and prospering.”
After a while some communities were left almost bare.
They left their homes. Soon some communities were left almost empty.
- 1941 caption
- 1993 caption
- Close
Two sets of captions accompany Lawrence’s Migration Series: the original 1941 texts and a revised version he wrote in 1993 for a tour of the series organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. Click on each date to compare the two.
After a while some communities were left almost bare.
They left their homes. Soon some communities were left almost empty.
- 1941 caption
- 1993 caption
- Close
Two sets of captions accompany Lawrence’s Migration Series: the original 1941 texts and a revised version he wrote in 1993 for a tour of the series organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington D.C. Click on each date to compare the two.
To create this empty room, Lawrence relies on a limited range of visual elements: three geometric planes, in varying shades of brown, press together to create the illusion of a cube-shaped space. More or less parallel lines convey the wooden planks that make up the floor and walls of an empty cabin. The room, with its steeply tilted planes and single aperture, its lack of any human presence and furnishings, seems more memorial than home.
History
Walker Evans. Sidewalk in Vicksburg, Mississippi. 1936. Gelatin silver print, 7 9/16 × 9 1/2” (19.2 × 24.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York
Culture
Sterling Brown, Southern Road. Illustration by E. Simms Campbell. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1932
As migrants moved north, many sought to document and celebrate the artifacts of southern black culture found in speech, folklore, music, and food. The poet and scholar Sterling Brown was a leader of such efforts, joining forces with government agencies to create illustrated guidebooks devoted to southern states like Virginia. Brown’s interest in the customs of the rural south also distinguish his poetry. Many of the poems in Southern Road, his 1932 anthology, adopt the idiosyncratic cadences and vocabulary of southern speech, simultaneously recording them for posterity and imbuing them with new expressive meaning.
Sterling Brown
Southern Road
Swing dat hammer—hunh—
Steady, bo’;
Swing dat hammer‚—hunh—
Steady, bo’;
Ain’t no rush, bebby,
Long ways to go.
Burner tore his—hunh—
Black heart away;
Burner tore his—hunh—
Black heart away;
Got me life, bebby,
An’ a day.
Gal’s on Fifth Street—hunh—
Son done gone;
Gal’s on Fifth Street—hunh—
Son done gone;
Wife’s in de ward, bebby,
Babe’s not bo’n.
My ole man died—hunh—
Cussin’ me;
My ole man died—hunh—
Cussin’ me;
Ole lady rocks, bebby,
Huh misery.
Doubleshackled—hunh—
Guard behin’;
Doubleshackled—hunh—
Guard behin’;
Ball an’ chain, bebby,
On my min’.
White man tells me—hunh—
Damn yo’ soul;
White man tells me—hunh—
Damn yo’ soul;
Got no need, bebby,
To be tole.
Chain gang nevah—hunh—
Let me go;
Chain gang nevah—hunh—
Let me go;
Po’ los’ boy, bebby,
Evahmo’…