Preservice social studies teachers encounter Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series : The pedagogical potential of art to teach Black history and migration

In this study, social studies preservice teachers encountered Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series, an artistic interpretation of the Great Migration. We aimed to analyze student responses to this seminal piece of art, focusing on how they conceptualized Black migration in this racialized context. Using the Black Historical Consciousness framework and aspirations-capabilities migration framework, we analyzed data from 88 social studies methods students over six semesters. Overall, students responded to the Migration Series by conceptualizing four patterns of migration and displacement of Black migrants from the U.S. South and four patterns of arrival and acculturation in migrants’ new urban spaces. This research highlights the pedagogical potential of art to teach Black histories, especially Black migration. Specifically, teaching the Great Migration through art as part of a longer arc of the Civil Rights Movement opens space for educators to add depth and complexity to Black histories in the United States.