African+American+Population+Shifts

__African American Population Shifts__

__Objectives__

Students will understand the following: 1. The United States conducts a census every 10 years. 2. The percentage of African Americans in different parts of the United States changed in the course of the last century. 3. There are economic, educational, and lifestyle reasons that African Americans moved from one part of the country to another. 4. How to accurately transfer information from a Census document to an Excel Document 5. How to visually display data using the most effective graph type. 6. How to generate meaningful and informative statistics from data tables and graphs.

__Materials__

For this lesson, you will need: • Access, in print or online, to U.S. population statistics from 1900 to the present

__Time Needed:__ Two 90 min. Project Blocks

__Procedures__

1. Explain to students that they are going to track the population of African Americans in the South and in the North of the United States during the course of the 20th century. Ask students what resources they can use in this assignment. This question should lead to identifying for students books of statistical data in your school library, public library, or nearby university library as well as Web sites such as census. 2. Even casually reviewing the data, students should be able to tell you the frequency with which the U.S. population is counted. With that information they should be able to set up a chart for recording data from their sources. 3. Specify for students that their research should yield the following pieces of information for each decade: The total U.S. population The total number of African Americans in the national population (also expressed as a percentage of the total U.S. population) The total population in the states that the class categorizes as southern states and in the remaining states (total in remaining states equals total U.S. population minus total population of southern states) The total number of African Americans in the states that the class categorizes as southern states (also expressed as a percentage of the total southern population) and in the remaining states The percentage change between decades in the number of African Americans in the southern states and in the rest of the country

4. Once students have collected the data, discuss with them how to present the data visually other than on the chart used to collect them. Elicit from students what type of graph—pie, line, and bar—will work best for which part of the data. Often percentages are best shown on pie charts, change over time on line graphs, and relative sizes on bar graphs. 5. Once the various graphs have been completed, open a discussion on what they show, covering the following questions: When did a significant proportion of African Americans move out of southern states? Did the flight from southern states continue, level off, or reverse with time?

6. Finally, ask students for the reasons behind the shifts they have noted in the African American population. Continue the discussion until students have identified at least the following reasons: job and school opportunities, family ties, missing the land, and wanting to escape urban ills.

__Adaptations__

Add to the assignment two other sets of figures for older students to find and work into their graphs: The total number of African American professionals located in southern states and in the rest of the country decade by decade The percentage change in the number of African American professionals, between decades, for southern states and for the rest of the country

__Discussion Questions__

1. Analyze the opening phrase of the program: “The lazy laughing South with blood on its mouth and I who am Black, would love her.” What would this statement mean to a person leaving the South for good? 2. Compare and contrast the sharecropping experiences of Euliss Carter, Florida Denton and Erlene Lindsey. 3. Explain how the sharecropping and tenant systems had simply created another form of slavery. 4. Discuss the appeal of the boxer, Joe Louis, and the importance of his victory against Max Schmeling within the African American community. 5. Explain the importance of the train to the lives of Southern African Americans and discuss its symbolism. 6. Explain how the Pullman Porters and The Chicago Defender newspaper “helped define Black Chicago.”

__Evaluation__

Have groups check each other’s graphs to verify that they have been plotted accurately. The goal of this review should be cooperation and assistance, not competition.