Bridges of Memory

by Black, Timuel D., Jr.; Terkel, Studs; Franklin, John Hope

• ISBN13: 9780810113626
• ISBN10: 0810113627
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-10-01
• Publisher: Northwestern Univ Pr

Summary

A collection of interviews with African Americans who came to Chicago from the South. In their first great migration to Chicago that began during World War I, African Americans came from the South seeking a better life--and fleeing a Jim Crow system of racial prejudice, discrimination, and segregation. What they found was much less than what they'd hoped for, but it was much better than what they'd come from--and in the process they set in motion vast changes not only in Chicago but also in the whole fabric of American society. This book, the first of three volumes, revisits this momentous chapter in American history with those who lived it. Oral history of the first order, Bridges of Memory lets us hear the voices of those who left social, political, and economic oppression for political freedom and opportunity such as they'd never known--and for new forms of prejudice and segregation. These children and grandchildren of ex-slaves found work in the stockyards and steel mills of Chicago, settled and started small businesses in the "Black Belt" on the South Side, and brought forth the jazz, blues, and gospel music that the city is now known for. Historian Timuel D. Black, Jr., himself the son of first-generation migrants to Chicago, interviews a wide cross-section of African Americans whose remarks and reflections touch on issues ranging from fascism to Jim Crow segregation to the origin of the blues. Their recollections comprise a vivid record of a neighborhood, a city, a society, and a people undergoing dramatic and unprecedented changes.

Author Biography

Timuel D. Black, Jr. is a prominent civil rights activist and a professor emeritus of social sciences at the City Colleges of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Forewords

Introduction

Conversations (35)

Warren Kirkland (and his friend

Thomas and Edith Ellis

Fred Smith

Corneal Davis

Lillie Lodge Brantley

Robert Colin

Ida Mae Cress

Ernest Griffin

Etta Moten Barnett

Alonzo Parham

Gwendolyn Davis

Irma Clark

Wayman Hancock

Jimmy Ellis

Morris Ellis

John Levy

Eddie Johnson

Juanita Tucker

Mildred Bowden and Hermene Hartman

Louis Caldwell

Alvin "Al" Boutte

James "Jack" Isbell

Dorsey Day

Jacoby Dickens

Dorothy McConner

George Johnson

Walter "Buddy" Brown

Milton Deas

Dr. Rudy Nimocks

LeRoy Martin

Judge Earl STrayhorn

Justice William Cousins

Marjorie and Harvey Echols

Bishop Arthur Brazier

Dr. James and Barbara Bowman

Conclusion

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