The Great Migration: push and pull factors in primary sources
What it is: a thread and a primary-source lesson for grades 6–8. Between about 1910 and 1970, roughly 6 million African Americans moved from the rural South to cities in the North, Midwest and West, according to the National Archives. Students use captions from Jacob Lawrence's "The Migration Series" paintings and archive sources to sort push factors and pull factors and to map the routes north and west.
Time: about 45 minutes. Grade: 6th to 8th grade.
Materials: images and captions from Jacob Lawrence's "The Migration Series" (shared online by The Phillips Collection and the Museum of Modern Art), a National Archives or Library of Congress source on the Great Migration, a U.S. map and two colors of sticky notes.
- Define push factors (reasons people leave a place) and pull factors (reasons people move to a new place).
- Show 6 to 8 Lawrence panels with captions. Students read each caption and decide whether it describes a push or a pull.
- Discuss the evidence with care: unfair Jim Crow laws, violence, low pay and crop failures pushed people to leave; jobs in factories, better schools and family who had already moved pulled them north and west.
- On the U.S. map, students draw arrows from Southern states to cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York and Los Angeles, following the main railroad lines.
- Students write a paragraph: one push factor, one pull factor, and one way the move changed the cities people arrived in, such as music, newspapers or neighborhoods.
Differentiation: students who need support work with 4 panels and a sorting chart. Students who are ready compare the Great Migration with another migration they research from a primary source. English learners can sort with picture support and use the frames "People left because ___" and "People moved to ___ because ___."
Quick check: ask a student to name one push factor and one pull factor and point to one destination city on the map.
Join the conversation: Which primary sources have helped your students understand migration with empathy and accuracy? Share a source or a discussion question that worked.
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About this resource
- Shared by
- @UpOnlyLearning · Curriculum team
- Posted
- Oct 31, 2026
- Type
- Tip
- Grade
- Grades 6–8
- Subject
- Social studies
- Language
- English
- License
- Free for classroom, co-op and tutoring use. Please don't resell.