The Neglect of Restrictive Covenants in Jacob Lawrence’s Migration Series

By Raaj Aggarwal

Jacob Lawrence's powerful Migration Series is housed in two of America's premier art institutions—the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. His vibrant paintings captured the hopes and struggles of African Americans who left the rural South for cities in the North between 1910s and 1970s, seeking better economic opportunities and escaping racial violence. The migration started with hundreds of African Americans moving to the North, eventually culminating to six million migrating from the South to the North and West. Among the millions seeking a new leaf were Jacob Lawrence’s parents, who moved from the rural South to New Jersey, subsequently influencing Lawrence's Migration Series.

These paintings would depict the issues and dreams African Americans experienced in the South, as well as what migrants found in the North. With regards to the problems African Americans faced in the South, Lawrence did not shy away from highlighting the structural racism plaguing everyday society. An example can be seen in panel 22 (Figure 1), where African Americans in the South were put in shackles for, as Lawrence put it, “the slightest provocation.”  However, a strange absence of structural racism could be found in how Lawrence depicted housing issues in the North. Lawrence showcased the cramped nature of migrants’ housing in the North in panel 48 (Figure 2), portraying tightly packed beds in single rooms with little living space. Yet within this panel, there’s no sense of where these housing issues came from. One could guess that the police were the ones putting African Americans in shackles in the South. However, Lawrence’s depiction of housing issues in the North makes it unclear as to where they came from. While panel 48 provides the sense that there was no culprit for poor housing, the reality was much grimmer. As migrants came out of the rural south searching for respite from an onslaught of racism, they would encounter a complex web of white supremacy that forced them into the sort of housing Lawrence portrays.

Figure 1: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 22. “Migrants left. They did not feel safe. It was not wise to be found on the streets late at night. They were arrested on the slightest provocation.” Tempera on Masonite, 12" x 18". (The Philips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

Figure 2: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 48. “Housing was a serious problem.” Tempera on Masonite, 18" x 12". (The Philips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000) was a renowned African American painter and educator whose work profoundly influenced American art. Born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Lawrence would eventually move to Harlem with his family during his youth. This experience deeply impacted Lawrence and helped lead to his art career, leading to the creation of The Migration Series. These paintings, created between 1940 and 1941, consists of sixty panels depicting the nationwide journey of African Americans from the South to the North. They brilliantly capture the struggles, hopes, and resilience of those seeking better lives. As such, the Migration Series remains a significant work in American art history, celebrated for its powerful narrative, artistic innovation, and masterful portrayal of the African Americans experience.

While Lawrence’s work captured the challenges to housing for Black migrants, his work lacked a display of restrictive covenants that explained these challenges. These covenants were legal agreements that prohibited the sale of homes to certain racial, ethnic, or religious groups, most commonly targeting African Americans. Emerging in the early 20th century, these covenants had numerous negative effects for African Americans, such as worsening the quality of housing for Black migrants. Yet throughout Lawrence’s artwork on the housing challenges African Americans faced in the North, there was no portrayal of restrictive covenants.

This lack of residential segregation can be seen in several panels showcasing poor housing African Americans had while lacking explanation for these hardships. Lawrence portrayed that housing was better in the North compared to the South in panel 31 (Figure 3) and panel 44 (Figure 4). However, Lawrence also portrayed Northern housing to be overcrowded and run down in panels 47 (Figure 5) and 48 (Figure 2). The makeshift bed in panel 47 and lack of living space in panel 48 creates a sense that Black migrants’ lives were far from perfect. Yet these portrayals don’t show that these issues came in part from structural racism and racial prejudice.

Figure 3: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 31. “The migrants found improved housing when they arrived north.” Tempera on Masonite, 12" x 18". (The Philips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

Figure 4: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 44. “But living conditions were better in the North.” Tempera on Masonite, 12" x 18". (The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Figure 5: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 47. “As the migrant population grew, good housing became scarce. Workers were forced to live in overcrowded and dilapidated tenement houses.” Tempera on Masonite, 18" x 12". (The Philips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

The narrative the Migration Series portrays is that African Americans simply found themselves in lackluster housing, as opposed to being confined by an extensive system of bigotry. Yet in the case of restrictive covenants, a lack of bigotry wasn’t the situation. Historian Wendy Plotkin documents the prejudice found in Newton Farr, the president of the National Association of Real Estate Boards and Chicago Real Estate Board starting in the early 1930s. Plotkin writes that, “In an extraordinary interview with the Chicago Defender, in early 1945, Newton asserted

‘Restrictive covenants are made to keep out undesirable people. Negroes are undesirable. . . . Negroes enjoy sex too much. Inclined to be promiscuous. Are mostly uneducated. The majority of them are poor-ragged-dirty. They're underfed.’”

While the interview was a few years after Lawrence’s Migration Series, Farr’s prejudice likely existed well before 1941. 

Although Lawrence did not depict racism being connected to housing issues, Lawrence did illustrate racial violence in the North. One example is in panel 50 (Figure 6), which depicts a white man with extreme hatred in his violent act. The spiked fingers on the white man’s hand and intensity of his facial expression makes clear his intent. Resentment towards migrants is further shown in panel 51 (Figure 7), showcasing white mobs viciously bombing the homes of African American newcomers. As such, when Lawrence’s portrayal of housing in the North is contrasted with his depiction of racial violence, one could get a sense that Northern racism only involved racial violence without any structural forms.

Figure 6: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 44. “Race riots were numerous. White workers were hostile toward the migrant who had been hired to break strikes.” Tempera on Masonite, 18" x 12". (The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Figure 7: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 51. “African Americans seeking to find better housing attempted to move into new areas. This resulted in the bombing of their new homes.” Tempera on Masonite, 18" x 12". (The Philips Collection, Washington, D.C.)

The psychological scarring caused by restrictive covenants and other forms of racism in the North was captured by other African American artists at the time. Richard Wright’s 1940 novel Native Son powerfully illustrates the impact African Americans felt in response to issues like the racial violence Lawrence portrayed. Wright illustrates how the main character of his novel, a black man named Bigger living in Chicago, felt the need to act submissively to Mr. Dalton, a white man whom Biggie seeks to work for:

"Bigger had not raised his eyes to the level of Mr. Dalton's face once since he had been in the house. He stood with his knees slightly bent, his lips partly open, his shoulders stooped; and his eyes held a look that went only to the surface of things. There was an organic conviction in him that this was the way white folks wanted him to be when in their presence; none had ever told him that in so many words, but their manner had made him feel that they did."

Bigger would later discover that Mr. Dalton was responsible for trapping Black Chicagoans in the oppressive conditions of ghetto housing through his control of real estate. Langston Hughes more directly explored residential segregation in his 1949 poem titled “Restrictive Covenants.” In it, he examines how African Americans were both psychologically and physically deprived of freedom:

“When I move

Into a neighborhood

Folks fly.

Even every foreigner

That can move, moves.

Why?

The moon doesn’t run.

Neither does the sun.

In Chicago

They’ve got covenants

Restricting me—

Hemmed in

On the South Side,

Can’t breathe free.

But the wind blows there.

I reckon the wind

Must care.”

The portrayals of northern racism in the 1940s from Lawrence, Wright, and Hughes show the different ways African American artists grappled with depicting white supremacy, each with varying degrees of illustrating residential segregation. 

The Migration Series’s absence of covenants is further problematic when the portrayal of Southern discrimination is contrasted with the North, since the panels focusing on the South depicted structural racism. One example can be seen in panel 14 (Figure 8), depicting African Americans as having no justice in Southern courts. In this painting, Lawrence portrayed African Americans in the South to be powerless against overwhelming systemic injustice, as evidenced by the white judge towering over the African Americans. As such, Lawrence’s depiction of Northern prejudice creates a narrative that systemic racism was only found in the South.

Figure 8: Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, 1940-41. Panel 14. “For African Americans there was no justice in southern courts.” Tempera on Masonite, 18" x 12". (The Museum of Modern Art, New York)

It is possible that Lawrence in 1940 did not know about restrictive covenants or had heard of these contracts but had no sense of their widespread support and effects. Regardless of this omission, it doesn’t change the fact that Lawrence’s Migration Series remains one of the most powerful, impressive portrayals of the Great Migration. It’s also important to note that while African Americans certainly faced challenges in the North, migrants would also have better lives in many respects, such as Lawrence portraying better educational opportunities in panel 58 and the freedom to vote in panel 59. Yet with this considered, the reasons for the poor housing Lawrence depicted must be remembered. African Americans did not simply stumble across deficient homes. Instead, migrants escaped a world of unimaginable abuse only to be welcomed by a new system of ruthless oppression that confined them inside the ghetto.

References
 Plotkin, Wendy. “Plotkin, "Deeds of Mistrust: Race, Housing, and Restrictive Covenants in Chicago: 1900-1953,” PhD Diss. University of Illinois, 1999.