Black migration to the united states

“Black Migration 1/2”. We reimagine Du Bois’s iconic image of the eastern and western hemispheres of the globe, that trace the paths of the trans-Atlantic slave trade over two images. This is where Du Bois’s famous remarks, “The problem of the 20th Century is the problem of the color-line” would first appear well before his most well known work “The Souls of Black Folk” would be written. In 1 of 2, current Black migration is represented by the black circle & arrow icons in addition to the forced migration from the African continent in red that Du Bois rendered as an image of what diaspora looked like in 1900. We use of the Fuller Map Projection created by Buckminster Fuller. The Fuller Projection shows the size of landmasses in correct portion. By design the Fuller map can be folded into a tetrahedron globe in its flat state the map suggest the interconnectedness and interaction between continents.

Black Migration to the U.S. 2/2. In part two we are showing forced Black migration in America in relation to other Black migration. The blue circles show the increase of the enslaved population in America from 1619 to 1865 and the Black circles represent the increase in other Black migration to the U.S. which we find data for as early as 1850 and we track into 2020. The timeline creates a loop starting at top with 1619 and looping under and back ending at 2020. The loop is significant for us. The data shows a few things firstly that at the height of the slave trade Black people were coming to the U.S. voluntarily for any number of reasons. The other is the complexities of what Black diaspora is within the American context. When we talk about Black America in the 21st Century it is light years away from the picture Du Bois had in front of him, yet the legacies of slavery in America touch all Black lives through the systemic ways it flattens and undermines our lived experiences.