Assignment: Graded Activity - The Jim Crow Era and The Blues

History of Rock-n-Roll
2022-06-04T05:26:00Z

Due:

The Jim Crow Era and The Blues

What is happening in this picture? Write your thoughts down and be ready to share...

Have you heard of the Jim Crow Laws?

Today we learn about the Blues which were first invented during the Jim Crow Era by poor black people.

The Jim Crow Laws were created in 1876 simply to segregate black people from the white population. Some English Dictionaries define ‘Jim Crow’ as the name for an implement that can straighten or bend iron rails; or, along with ‘Jim Crowism’, systems or practices of racial discrimination or segregation. The American English Dictionary suggests that the name only emerged in dictionaries in 1904, but it was clearly used generally in 1876, at least.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

OVERVIEW

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

OVERVIEW

“As I began to get into the history of the music,” writes Amiri Baraka (writing under the name LeRoi Jones) in his book Blues People, “I found that this was impossible without, at the same time, getting deeper into the history of the people. [The Blues] was the history of the Afro-American people as text, as tale, as story, as exposition, narrative… the music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection, of Afro-American life.”

In the beginning, the Blues was music performed by poor African Americans for audiences of poor African Americans, and a reflection of their common experiences in the Jim Crow South. The Blues were one of the few forums through which poor, rural African Americans of the late 19th and early 20th centuries could articulate their experiences, attitudes, and emotions.

They made music about heartbreak, the challenges of their lives as sharecroppers, the relentless Mississippi River floods, about the harsh mastery of white landowners.

This lesson focuses on the music through which those hardships were expressed and on the daily lives of southern blacks in the sharecropping era. It is structured around an imagined road trip through Mississippi.

1. You will “stop” in two places: Yazoo City, where they will learn about the sorts of natural disasters that periodically devastated already-struggling poor southerners, and Hillhouse, where they will learn about the institution of sharecropping.

2. You will study a particular Country Blues song at each “stop” and examine it as a window onto the socioeconomic conditions of the people who created it.

3. You will create a scrapbook of your journey, in which you’ll record and analyze what you learned about the difficulty of eking out a living in the age of sharecropping.

Group Activity: Video Clip

1. Watch the video clip of Howlin' Wolf performing "I'll Be Back Someday" (1964).

2. What is the message Howlin' Wolf gives in his lyrics?

3. Why he might be saying this?

Station 1: Yazoo, MS

Poor southerners, black and white alike, lived in the shadow of natural disasters. Students will examine songs, paintings, and imagery to learn about the floods, pestilence, and drought that threatened the lives of southern field workers.

Question 1) What is a delta?

Question 2) What is a floodplain?

Question 3) How do floodplains make agriculture possible?

Watch Video: Bessie Smith, “Homeless Blues” (1927)

Question 4) What is the song’s subject matter?

Question 5) What are the keywords, lines & arguments in the lyrics?

Question 6) Which instrument(s) do you hear?

Question 7) What mood does the music create?

Question 8) What emotions are you meant to feel while listening?

Watch Video: Charley Patton, “Bo Weavil Blues” (1929)

Question 9) What is the song’s subject matter?

Question 10) What are the keywords, lines & arguments in the lyrics?

Question 11) Which instrument(s) do you hear?

Question 12) What mood does the music create?

Question 13) What emotions are you meant to feel while listening?

Jacob Lawrence paintings

Question 14) What is the subject of the painting?

Question 15) What is the mood of the painting?

Question 16) What does the painting suggest about the conditions that helped create the Blues?

Station 2: Hillhouse, Mississippi.

Video: Lightnin’ Hopkins, “Cotton” (1959)

Question 1) What is the song’s subject matter?

Question 2) What are the keywords, lines & arguments in the lyrics?

Question 3) Which instrument(s) do you hear?

Question 4)What mood does the music create?

Question 5) What emotions are you meant to feel while listening?

Sharecropping

Question 6) How did the sharecropping system work?

Question 7) In what ways and to what extent did sharecropping re-create slavery for Southern African Americans?

Question 8) What is the subject of the painting?

Question 9) What is the mood of the painting?

Question 10) What does the painting suggest about the conditions that helped create the blues?

Question 11) What is happening in the photographs?

Question 12) Specify at least four specific connections between the photographs and the other texts at this station.

Question 13) What do the photos suggest about the shared experiences of African-American and white sharecroppers in the South?

Question 14) What is happening in the photographs?

Question 15) Specify at least four specific connections between the photographs and the other texts at this station.

Question 16) What do the photos suggest about the shared experiences of African-American and white sharecroppers in the South?

Writing Assignment

How did the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

1. Be sure to make specific references to the artifacts seen and heard in this lesson.

2. Write a minimum of three paragraphs.

The Jim Crow Era and The Blues

What is happening in this picture? Write your thoughts down and be ready to share...

Have you heard of the Jim Crow Laws?

Today we learn about the Blues which were first invented during the Jim Crow Era by poor black people.

The Jim Crow Laws were created in 1876 simply to segregate black people from the white population. Some English Dictionaries define ‘Jim Crow’ as the name for an implement that can straighten or bend iron rails; or, along with ‘Jim Crowism’, systems or practices of racial discrimination or segregation. The American English Dictionary suggests that the name only emerged in dictionaries in 1904, but it was clearly used generally in 1876, at least.

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

OVERVIEW

ESSENTIAL QUESTION

How do the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

OVERVIEW

“As I began to get into the history of the music,” writes Amiri Baraka (writing under the name LeRoi Jones) in his book Blues People, “I found that this was impossible without, at the same time, getting deeper into the history of the people. [The Blues] was the history of the Afro-American people as text, as tale, as story, as exposition, narrative… the music was the score, the actually expressed creative orchestration, reflection, of Afro-American life.”

In the beginning, the Blues was music performed by poor African Americans for audiences of poor African Americans, and a reflection of their common experiences in the Jim Crow South. The Blues were one of the few forums through which poor, rural African Americans of the late 19th and early 20th centuries could articulate their experiences, attitudes, and emotions.

They made music about heartbreak, the challenges of their lives as sharecroppers, the relentless Mississippi River floods, about the harsh mastery of white landowners.

This lesson focuses on the music through which those hardships were expressed and on the daily lives of southern blacks in the sharecropping era. It is structured around an imagined road trip through Mississippi.

1. You will “stop” in two places: Yazoo City, where they will learn about the sorts of natural disasters that periodically devastated already-struggling poor southerners, and Hillhouse, where they will learn about the institution of sharecropping.

2. You will study a particular Country Blues song at each “stop” and examine it as a window onto the socioeconomic conditions of the people who created it.

3. You will create a scrapbook of your journey, in which you’ll record and analyze what you learned about the difficulty of eking out a living in the age of sharecropping.

Group Activity: Video Clip

1. Watch the video clip of Howlin' Wolf performing "I'll Be Back Someday" (1964).

2. What is the message Howlin' Wolf gives in his lyrics?

3. Why he might be saying this?

Station 1: Yazoo, MS

Poor southerners, black and white alike, lived in the shadow of natural disasters. Students will examine songs, paintings, and imagery to learn about the floods, pestilence, and drought that threatened the lives of southern field workers.

Question 1) What is a delta?

Question 2) What is a floodplain?

Question 3) How do floodplains make agriculture possible?

Watch Video: Bessie Smith, “Homeless Blues” (1927)

Question 4) What is the song’s subject matter?

Question 5) What are the keywords, lines & arguments in the lyrics?

Question 6) Which instrument(s) do you hear?

Question 7) What mood does the music create?

Question 8) What emotions are you meant to feel while listening?

Watch Video: Charley Patton, “Bo Weavil Blues” (1929)

Question 9) What is the song’s subject matter?

Question 10) What are the keywords, lines & arguments in the lyrics?

Question 11) Which instrument(s) do you hear?

Question 12) What mood does the music create?

Question 13) What emotions are you meant to feel while listening?

Jacob Lawrence paintings

Question 14) What is the subject of the painting?

Question 15) What is the mood of the painting?

Question 16) What does the painting suggest about the conditions that helped create the Blues?

Station 2: Hillhouse, Mississippi.

Video: Lightnin’ Hopkins, “Cotton” (1959)

Question 1) What is the song’s subject matter?

Question 2) What are the keywords, lines & arguments in the lyrics?

Question 3) Which instrument(s) do you hear?

Question 4)What mood does the music create?

Question 5) What emotions are you meant to feel while listening?

Sharecropping

Question 6) How did the sharecropping system work?

Question 7) In what ways and to what extent did sharecropping re-create slavery for Southern African Americans?

Question 8) What is the subject of the painting?

Question 9) What is the mood of the painting?

Question 10) What does the painting suggest about the conditions that helped create the blues?

Question 11) What is happening in the photographs?

Question 12) Specify at least four specific connections between the photographs and the other texts at this station.

Question 13) What do the photos suggest about the shared experiences of African-American and white sharecroppers in the South?

Question 14) What is happening in the photographs?

Question 15) Specify at least four specific connections between the photographs and the other texts at this station.

Question 16) What do the photos suggest about the shared experiences of African-American and white sharecroppers in the South?

Writing Assignment

How did the Country Blues reflect the challenges of sharecropping, racial injustice, and rural poverty in early 20th-century African-American life?

1. Be sure to make specific references to the artifacts seen and heard in this lesson.

2. Write a minimum of three paragraphs.