The Migration Series, Panel no. 17: Tenant farmers received harsh treatment at the hands of planters.

Once again, Lawrence highlights a cause for black Americans to move North. He depicts two black men, carrying a heavy load while the onlooking white man weighs and measures the fruits of their labor. Known as “sharecropping”, Lawrence shows the process of tenant farmers essentially living in indentured servitude. Although usually showing his figures as simple, hunched-over forms, the tenant farmer here makes eye contact with the planter, creating a tense and poignant tone to this panel.