The Great Migration can get forgotten if we don't pay attention

“The Great Migration can get forgotten if we don't pay attention or bear witness to it. It's part of my personal history and the history of millions of African Americans who left those oppressive conditions for better lives in the North. It's important to put that on the page.” — Jacqueline Woodson

In the stillness of memory, where the stories of our ancestors rest like seeds beneath the soil, the words of Jacqueline Woodson rise like a sacred flame. She speaks of The Great Migration, that mighty river of people who moved not just across the land, but across the boundaries of fear and oppression, seeking light where once there had been shadow. From the fields of the South to the steel and smoke of the North, millions carried with them the songs of survival, the dreams of liberty, and the quiet determination to build a future their children might one day call their own. Yet, as Woodson warns, even the strongest river can be forgotten if the sands of time are allowed to bury it. Thus, she calls us to bear witness — to remember, to write, to tell, and to keep the story alive.

To bear witness is not a passive act. It is an offering. It is the beating of the heart that refuses silence. When Woodson writes that “it’s important to put that on the page,” she speaks as a guardian of memory, as one who understands that words are not mere ink, but the very vessels of truth. For in every generation, there are those who would prefer the past to remain unseen — to erase the footprints that lead from bondage to freedom. But memory is a living force. It grows when tended. It fades when ignored. And so, to forget the Great Migration is to lose sight of the courage that shaped the very soul of a people.

Imagine, then, the story of Jacob Lawrence, the great painter who chronicled the Migration in bold strokes of color and light. His brush gave life to the weary travelers on crowded trains, the mothers who carried infants wrapped in cloth, the fathers who looked forward toward cities unknown. His art became a testimony to that journey — a visual hymn for those who could not write their own stories. Lawrence, like Woodson, understood that remembrance is resistance. That to tell the story is to honor the struggle. Through his panels, through Woodson’s pages, we are reminded that history is not dead — it breathes through us, awaiting our attention.

There were those who left behind the red clay of Georgia or the cotton rows of Mississippi, not out of ease but of necessity. They fled from laws that sought to chain their spirits as tightly as their ancestors’ bodies had been chained. They traveled northward — to Chicago, to Detroit, to Harlem — carrying nothing but faith and the will to endure. They built communities from dust, churches from wood and song, and hope from hardship. And though the North was no promised land, it was a step toward something more — a place where their children could learn to read, to vote, to dream freely. Their journey was not simply a migration; it was a rebirth.

Yet today, as the world turns swiftly and forgetfulness grows like a fog, these stories risk being lost. Woodson’s call is not only for writers, but for all who carry blood that remembers — to speak the truth, to listen to the elders, to record the names that might otherwise vanish. For when a people forget where they come from, they become like a tree cut from its roots — standing for a time, but doomed to fall. The Great Migration was not a tale of geography alone; it was a testament to endurance, creativity, and the unyielding hunger for dignity.

Let this teaching be clear: Memory is a sacred duty. Each of us is born into a story larger than ourselves. To know it, to share it, to preserve it, is to give life to those who came before us. The ancients knew this truth — that the spoken word could bind generations, that the written word could outlive empires. When we tell the stories of those who walked before us, we do not merely honor the past; we forge the soul of the future.

Therefore, dear listener, take this to heart: Remember your history. Write it down. Teach it to your children. Seek out the elders whose voices tremble with truth, and let them speak. Visit the places where your people once stood and whisper their names into the wind. In doing so, you become the living archive, the bridge between what was and what must be. For if you do not bear witness, who will?

And so, let us echo Woodson’s wisdom: the story of The Great Migration — and indeed, of every people’s struggle toward freedom — must never fade. Let it live in our words, in our art, in our songs, and in our hearts. For as long as we remember, we remain unbroken. And as long as we tell the story, the ancestors still walk beside us.