They Were Very Poor
The painting depicts a meal by a married black couple; men and women’s sad and tired faces stand out, with furrowed brows and lips compressed in a thin line. In front of them, there is a vast empty table, plates, and the dishes that look tiny in contrast with it. The picture raises such a problem as the poverty of Black immigrants, most of whom were below the poverty line. African-Americans who received less than the subsistence minimum could not afford a complete food package, including meat, fish, and fruit. An important detail is the white color of the plate and the golden color of the spoon in it. This refers to the proverb “to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth,” which means “to be born very rich.” The white man was born not just with a silver spoon in his mouth but with a golden one. At the same time, the black plate is nailed at an unattainable height for the spouses, which symbolizes the inaccessibility of material equality between whites and blacks at the moment.
During the World War, There Was a Great Migration North by Southern Negroes
The painting depicts a stream of hundreds of migrants, a crowd that tries to make its way to the exits to the railway station. The clothing details stand out: the women’s traditional African-American headdresses and hats, as well as their long skirts. The panel is dedicated to the mass migration of southern Negroes to the North during World War. This is primarily due to the scientific and technological revolution of the second half of the XX century in the United States (Smarthistory, 2015). It led to the restructuring of the economy, which resulted in a radical change in the functions of large cities. The structural adjustment of the economy, in turn, has triggered radical changes in the structure, nature, and capacity of the labor market. The picture raises related important ethnodemographic questions concerning significant changes in the ethnic-racial and socio-economic composition of the population of large cities. The use of traditional yellow and red colors symbolizes that black migrants brought elements of their culture to the cities of the south. The image of a woman holding a baby is also essentialas it represents the beginning of a new life for immigrants.
Reference
Smarthistory. (2015). Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series (long version). Web.