Resource: Finding Their Voice
Media Type:
QuickTime Video
Length: 0m 59s
Size: 2.5 MB
In the 1920s, thousands of African Americans left the rural South for cities in the North in a movement called "The Great Migration." Their arrival in New York City marked a period called "The Harlem Renaissance." In this video segment from A Walk Through Harlem, we learn that only 30 years earlier these descendants of slaves had worked as poor sharecroppers. Although slavery had ended, they still were uneducated and illiterate. Their shift to the urban North was an attempt to escape the violence and oppression they experienced in the South. They created a new voice for themselves during the Harlem Renaissance, which was a social, artistic and cultural movement.
Teachers' Domain, Finding Their Voice, published August 26, 2008, retrieved on ,
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/vtl07.la.ws.style.voice/
- Frame and Focus
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- Connections
- Standards
The following suggestions are best suited for middle school students using this video in an English language arts or social studies lesson. Be sure to modify the questions to meet your students' instructional needs.
Frame (ELA) Every decade in the history of the United States has its own characteristics. There was the roaring 1920s, characterized by wealth, wildness and explosion of the arts. There were hard times of the Depression of the 1930s and the devastation of world war during the 1940s. War times eventually changed to a more prosperous, happy outlook in the 1950s and then the social unrest of the 1960s. How would you describe the characteristics of the time period we are living in today?
Focus (ELA) What were the characteristics of the early 1900s? Specifically, what was this period like for African Americans?
Frame (SS) What happened to African Americans after slavery was abolished in 1865 by the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution? How did their lives change? Where did they live? How did they make a living?
Focus (SS) There was much violence and discrimination against African Americans in the South through the early 1900s. What did they do to escape this violence?
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Source: A Walk Through Harlem
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Funding for the VITAL/Ready to Teach collection was secured through the United States Department of Education under the Ready to Teach Program.


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