Explore the lasting cultural, political, and societal impact of the Great Migration through the life and work of artist Jacob Lawrence. Browse all 60 panels from The Migration Series and delve into Jacob Lawrence's art and life through photographs, …

More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I.

In 1940, he received a grant from the Rosenwald Foundation to create a 60-panel epic, The Migration of the Negro (now known as The Migration Series); when the series was exhibited at Edith Halpert’s Downtown Gallery the following year, the then 23-year-old artist catapulted to national acclaim.

Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series tells the story of the Great Migration, or mass movement of over one million African Americans from the rural South to the urban North in the early decades of the 20th century, a period that forever altered the social, economic, political, and cultural fabric of American society.

September 10–October 23: The Migration of the Negro by Jacob Lawrence is exhibited at The Phillips Collection. 1974 Whitney Museum of American Art opens retrospective of Lawrence's paintings that travels to five other US venues.

Jacob Lawrence’s Harlem Migrant Life At the start of World War I, when African American migrants chose to uproot themselves from their longtime homes in the South, they took a major leap of faith that a better life awaited them in the “promised land” of the North.

More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I.

More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I.

More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I.

More than 75 years ago, a young artist named Jacob Lawrence set to work on an ambitious 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of over a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I.