How the undying spirit of Black Americans shone through their sufferings in the form of art:
an examination and curation of pieces by Dominique Nanquil
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59. In the North they had the freedom to vote.
A patient line of black voters streams in from the bottom of the panel, and two figures to the right process paperwork. One white guard stands with his baton, but does not appear intimidating. The voting booth is open and ready to accept its next voter, creating a sense of hope in the panel. Though it seems ordinary, this event marks a definite change from the ludicrous voting restrictions imposed in the South. The MoMA comments on this, citing the “grandfather clause,” literary tests, and poll taxes. Occasionally, black voters were even met with violence at voting booths. But in Lawrence’s ordinary panel, there is no such threat. This peaceful scene of black voters is deceptively important, since it signifies a complete transformation in these migrants’ lives and roles in America as voters.
60. And the migrants kept coming.
The MoMA’s description reads:
In the last panel of the Migration Series, Lawrence returns to the motif of the train: this time a crowd of anonymous black figures fill a railroad platform. Packed shoulder to shoulder across the width of the panel, the migrants stand with their bags and suitcases, waiting to pile into the next train. The series ends on an elliptical note: the rush of black southerners into the North, Lawrence suggests, will continue well into the future.
I don’t think I could word it any better myself. A reprisal of the first panel, the final message that Lawrence leaves us with is one of hope. The same sea of migrants fill the frame, faces forward to greet the train as soon as it arrives. It is a timeless reminder of the continuous flow of the Great Migration, and of the migrants’ pioneering spirit. Hope for the future, hope for their children, hope for a new life, all resonates within this last panel. The viewers are now face to face with the migrants, after having learned of both their suffering and their resilience. And at the end, Lawrence chooses to emphasize that resilience above all, not the pain or grieving, because he acknowledges the positive outcomes, not only the negative ones. He proves this in the very fact that he created this series: he transformed this suffering into a painted testimony with an overtone of hope, not despair.