Alabama Social Studies SS24.5.4b
The Standard
- SS24.5.4
- Analyze the reasons for increased immigration to, and migration within, the United States and Alabama in the early twentieth century.
Identify the economic and social conditions that led to the start of the Great Migration.
2024 Alabama Course of Study: Social Studies
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students explain why many Black Americans left the South for northern cities starting around 1916. They connect sharecropping debt, Jim Crow laws, and violence with northern factory jobs and wartime labor shortages.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Given a map and short source cards, a student names two reasons to leave the South and one reason to go north. They explain how World War I increased demand for factory workers.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think slavery was still legal when the migration began, or that families moved to escape fighting in Europe. They may assume northern cities had no racism.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: In 1917, why might a Black sharecropper in Mississippi move to Chicago? Give one reason to leave, one reason to go, and explain how the war affected jobs.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a U.S. map and string; have them trace Mississippi to Chicago and attach notes about reasons to leave or go.
Ask, 'Why might a Black family leave Mississippi for Chicago in 1917?' Require one reason to leave and one reason to go.
Play an odd-card game with sharecropping debt, northern factory wages, Jim Crow laws, and Civil War battles; have students defend their choice.
Give students a mock 1917 factory job ad and sharecropper debt note; ask which details might shape a family's decision.
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Printable SS24.5.4b Worksheet
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Related Standards
- SS24.HG.9b
Explain the causes and consequences of migration within the United States, citing historical examples.
- SS24.5.4
Analyze the reasons for increased immigration to, and migration within, the United States and Alabama in the early twentieth century.
- SS24.HG.9a
Explain the causes and effects of the migration of various ethnic groups to the United States.
- SS24.US1.17c
Investigate and recount the experiences of immigrant communities in urban America, including patterns of settlement, cultural assimilation, and origins of migra...
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