Monument to the Great Northern
Migration, 1994
Alison Saar
Dr. Martin Luther King,
Jr. Drive at 26th Place
This fifteen-foot tall monument, oriented in a northward
direction, stands at the entrance to the historic district of Bronzeville, an
area bounded by 22nd Street to the north, 51st Street to
the south, Cottage Grove to the east and the Rock Island Railroad to the west.
Known in the 1920s as the “Black Belt,” the term “Bronzeville” was suggested by
James J. Gentry, the theatre editor for the Chicago
Bee, as a less offensive term as it more accurately described the skin tone
of most of the neighborhood’s inhabitants. This bronze figure depicting a man
waving with one hand and carrying a suitcase in the other represents the six
million African Americans who migrated to northern cities from the American
South from the 1910s to the 1970s. His clothes and the mound upon which he
stands appear to be crafted from thousands of worn soles of shoes. The bollards
surrounding the statue take the form of suitcases textured with patterns
derived from the tin ceilings of the early 20th century.
Alison Saar (born 1956) grew up in Laurel Canyon,
California and studied at Scripps College with Samella Lewis, noted scholar of
African, African American and Caribbean art. Saar’s works are often figurative,
employing archetypal images to intertwine folklore and legend with the
struggles and spiritual concerns of everyday people. She is the daughter of
artist Betye Saar, who came to prominence with her 1972 assemblage piece The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, which
portrayed the stereotypical figure of a “mammy” holding a broom in one hand and
a rifle in the other. Alison Saar’s monument reflects the hope of a “promised
land,” often unrealized, that prompted so many African Americans to leave the
Jim Crow South.
