Evaluate the impact of the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance on the condition of African Americans.

The question requires that candidates make an appraisal of the impact of the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance weighing up the benefits and costs these may have brought to African Americans. Candidates may offer equal coverage of the impact of the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance, or they may prioritize their evaluation of either one. However, both aspects will be a feature of the response. Candidates may argue that the Great Migration improved the socio-economic condition of African Americans, as northern cities offered better educational opportunities, greater freedoms, and decreased racial violence. Still, social hardships persisted, including decreased community life, housing problems, and discrimination. Candidates may describe improvements in employment; but argue that jobs were low-paid and unskilled, and workers were generally not protected by unions. Candidates may also argue that with the cultural explosion of the Harlem Renaissance, the image of African Americans changed into one of greater sophistication and that the movement gave rise to early self-determination claims and militancy. Both positive and negative effects must be clearly indicated but there does not need to be an equal number of/focus on each.

The question required candidates to make an appraisal of the impact of the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance weighing up the benefits and costs these may have brought to African Americans. The question was not very popular but did produce some responses demonstrating sound understanding of both the Great Migration and the Harlem Renaissance. There was a tendency by some candidates to address only one part of the question’s demands or to place the Great Migration in the wrong era.