• The struggle for racial and gender equality and for the extension of civil liberties.
• The social and economic impact of the Great Depression (e.g., the impact of the depression on industry and workers; the response of local and state officials in combating the resulting economic and social crises; the effects of the Depression on American families and on ethnic and racial minorities; the effect on gender roles; the victimization of African Americans and white sharecroppers).
• The economic boom and social transformation of post-World War II United States.

• Narrative, The Second Great Migration
• The narrative African Immigration may be used in addition to this essay, focusing on the section The Brain Drain and the Structural Adjustments Policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.)

1. Ask students if they have ever heard of the so-called "law of unintended consequences." Explain that it derives largely from economics, which assumes that actions by governments and individuals always have unintended or unanticipated consequences. It is a cause-and-effect principle, sometimes as simple and frustratingly familiar as when you install a new program on your computer, and it suddenly has a host of problems, from denying access to files to flashing the "blue screen of death."
2. Discuss, as a class, other actions, inventions, changes in the environment, and legislation that have had unintended consequences. Emphasize the cause-and-effect relationship. Alternatively, ask students to look overnight for an example, write it up in "cause-effect" format, and bring the example in the next day to share with the class.

1. Direct students to read segments from their textbooks or a reference book examining the Agricultural Adjustment Act (as originally passed in 1933, struck down by the Supreme Court in 1936 in a six-three decision, and recreated in 1938).
2. Then, ask students to read the narrative The Second Great Migration focusing on the section "Causes of the Migrations—Pushes." Provide the following guide questions to assist students as they read:

   1. What appeared to be the only solution to end falling crop prices?
   2. What was the intended consequence of cutting production by taking land out of production?
   3. What were "parity" payment subsidies?
   4. What was the intended consequence of government subsidies?
   5. How were tenant farmers, owner-planters, and sharecroppers originally intended to share the subsidies?
   6. What was the unintended consequence of subsidies on tenant farmers and sharecroppers?
   7. What was the unintended consequence of the reduction in acres planted on agricultural workers?
   8. What was the unintended consequence of the subsidies for planter-owners on mechanization? On the demand for full-time agricultural workers? On the demand for part-time agricultural workers?
   9. What was the unintended consequence of the Agricultural Adjustment Act on African-American migration?

3. Ask students to read the section "Reverse Migration" from the narrative The Second Great Migration (or the narrative African Immigration.
4. Instruct students to write a paragraph or short composition about the unintended consequences of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 on African-American migration. Students may wish to use their textbook or a reference book summarizing the original intent and provisions of the Act in conjunction with the narrative. They can also go to http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_b.htm for an online version of the Act. Students should include the following elements in their written assignments:

   1. Summarize the provisions of the Voting Act (causes).
   2. Identify the provisions' intended consequences.
   3. Identify which provisions seemed to have had an impact on African-American migration out of the South.
   4. Evaluate, overall, whether the Voting Rights Act had a significant, if unintended, impact (effect) on African-American migration out of the South.

   (Alternatively, students may wish to examine the Structural Adjustments Policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank (causes), identify their intended consequences, and then assess the unintended consequences (effects) on African immigration to the United States.)

Evaluate students' written assignments on a 20-point scale (which may be multiplied by 5 to convert to a 100-point scale or to letter grades) using the following rubric:

• The Schomburg Center's Digital exhibit The African Presence in the Americas 1492-1992 includes the segment "Cotton is King" with information on sharecropping and an early photographic view of workers in the cotton fields at: http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Schomburg/text/work16a.html. It also depicts a Depression-era sharecropper at: http://www.si.umich.edu/CHICO/Schomburg/text/work16b.html.
• The Library of Congress' American Memory Collection features over seven million online digital documents. It is a rich resource for a wide variety of documents about the Great Depression. In the WPA segment of the "African-American Mosaic" exhibit at http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam012.html, visitors can see a "Books are Weapons" poster for the Schomburg Center. Additional valuable resources follow:

  • The Farm Security Administration's photograph collection at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fahome.html and
  • Manuscripts from the Federal Writer's Project, including interviews with sharecroppers such as Mose Sutton in "He Never Wanted Land Till Now," at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/wpaintro/wpahome.html. Tom Bird's interview from this collection contains offensive language but also a candid assessment that the New Deal programs are empowering African Americans. It might be useful as background information for a teacher or used in an extracted form.

• The New Deal Network at: http://newdeal.feri.org/ also provides many links to New Deal resources. One featured online exhibit is "African Americans in the Civilian Conservation Corps" at: http://newdeal.feri.org/aaccc/index.htm.

• Language Arts/Drama: The Works Progress Administration's (WPA) Federal Theatre Project helped sustain struggling writers during the Depression. Examples of their works may be found at: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fedtp/. Students will collaborate with language arts teachers to research and write a skit based on the experiences of sharecroppers during the Depression. Then, students either will present the resulting drama in class or on stage or will record the performance.
• Government/Political Science: Students may conduct additional research on the impact of government programs on African-American life (including migration) during the twentieth century. They may wish to find out about the following:

  • New Deal programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Works Progress Administration (WPA), National Youth Administration, and Farm Security Administration.
  • Civil Rights-era acts such as the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1964 and 1991, whose texts may be accessed at: http://www.africanamericans.com/. Detailed information for the 1964 Act may also be found at the National Archives' Digital Classroom at: http://www.archives.gov/digital_classroom/lessons/civil_rights_act/civil_rights_act.html.