Follow The North Star

“As people of the African Diaspora, our modern history can be viewed as a single continuous trek towards 'freedom'. Despite the consistent march,however, 'freedom' has remained an unreachable location. Follow the North Star: Freedom in the Age of Mobility, explores this dichotomy. How has the concept of'freedom'remained an eternally compelling beacon, while simultaneously proving to be an utterly illusive destination?”

-James E. Bartlett, Exhibition Curator

Mobility

Back To Africa

Going West

Mobility is the ability to move, specifically, the ability to move freely and easily. Throughout history, Black people have had to seize the power of movement especially when white racism attempted to control and restrict it.

Africa is not only the continent of origin of people of African descent. It is also the tangible location for a romanticized idea of “home.” Generation after generation, people from across the African Diaspora left the places where slavery forced them to live and work to return to the Motherland.

During the Great Migration of the 20th century, westward migration once again boomed. Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, and Seattle were among the most popular destinations. African American newcomers and their children born on the West Coast forever changed the American political and cultural landscape.

Faith

Chicago Advocacy

Migration

Faith has inspired African American leaders from Nat Turner’s 1831 rebellion against slavery and Sojourner Truth’s abolitionist ministry to Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a Beloved Community and Malcolm X’s Black Power message shaped by Islam and beyond.

Along with Detroit and Cleveland, Chicago was one of the major receiving cities of migrants from the Midwest during the Great Migration. African Americans, mostly from the Gulf Coast states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana, traveled by way of the Illinois Central Railroad to settle in the Bronzeville area of Chicago, dubbed the Black Metropolis or the “city within a city.

Migration is the movement of people from one place to another, driven by push and pull factors. For African Americans, racist restrictions often pushed them away, while the desire for freedom pulled them elsewhere.