Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. During the early 20th century, waves of people moved internally through the US in a period known as “The Great Migration.” What were some of the causes of The Great Migration and its effects on US demographics? Where did people migrate to, and which groups of people were the main ones who migrated?

Teaching Suggestion: This question orients students within the historical context of the story. Historians have determined that between the years 1910 and 1970, approximately six million individuals from Black communities moved from Southern states to Northern, Midwestern, and Western states to find work. Although slavery had ended almost 50 years before the start of the migration, many Black communities stayed in the South and continued to work as farmers on plantations. However, with the entrance of the US in World War I, along with the decrease in immigration from outside the US, the growing need for labor in the North attracted many Black individuals in the South to emigrate from the region. The waves of movement sometimes resulted in hostile tensions between racial communities in larger Northern cities; in the story, Ellison touches on the theme of The Great Migration and Dislocation Between North and South with subtle references to the perceived differences between the regions, such as the protagonist’s hesitancy to ask his peers for some peanuts and the man with the microphone’s comment that North Carolina is not in the US.