Exodusters: A Poemification of Jacob Lawrence’s The Migration Series

Abstract

Black folks are constantly instructed to "stop living in the past," when the very act of remembering (re-membering our collective history that has been brutally beaten and chopped to bits then buried beneath a ground of white fear) is what enables us to fly. In the African American Southern stories about flying Africans brought to the so-called United States, remembering the ability to fly is the key to actually being able to do it. And our flight is beautiful; rhythmic, miracle, learned. This poem seeks to illustrate the sequence of flight enacted by Black folks during The Great Migration as a means of reminding Black folks alive today of the historically precedented power of the movement of our bodies and the resolute-ness of our collective "no." May the rhythm of their rebellion and the permeating sting of the whitelash be properly re-membered through this work.