This significant event and the subsequent struggle of African-American migrants to adapt to Northern cities was the subject of James Lawrence's Migration Series.

A new work, "The Migration Series," features in this week's highly anticipated collaborations between the ensemble and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

A bittersweet saga whose mixture of words and images has a circling, fuguelike rhythm, "The Migration Series" is Mr. Lawrence's greatest achievement.

The center of the festival is unquestionably the Modern's show of "The Migration Series," a work of epic span yet intimate proportions.

Nonetheless, "The Migration Series" is at heart a work of sustaining optimism.

"Jacob Lawrence: The Migration Series" opens April 19 and continues until June 12.

Middle, Lowest, Highest, and Zero International Migration Series, 1999-2100" on www.census.gov.

Migration Series (2006)

Lawrence was only in his twenties when his "Migration Series" made him nationally famous.

Lawrence was only twenty-three when he completed the sixty-panel set of narrative paintings entitled Migration of the Negro, now called The Migration Series.