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North to Boston tells the life histories of ten Black individuals who moved from the southern United States to Boston, Massachusetts, during the Great Migration. Based on extensive oral history interviews and a creative narrative structure, Gumprecht illuminates this singularly important event in the making of Boston as it exists today.
List of contents
- Preface
- 1. The Great Migration in New England
- 2. Charles Gordon, Baton Rouge, Louisiana, 1943
- 3. Thomas Lindsay, Birmingham, Alabama, 1951
- 4. Lucy Parham, Morven, North Carolina, 1957
- 5. Ollie Sumrall Jr., Quitman, Mississippi, 1959
- 6. Elizabeth Hall Davis, Columbia, South Carolina, 1963
- 7. Willie Pittman, Shady Grove, Alabama, 1963
- 8. Geraldine Walker, Clay County, Alabama, 1963
- 9. Barbra Hicks, Bradford, Alabama, 1964
- 10. Al Kinnitt Jr., Brunswick, Georgia, 1964
- 11. Elta Garrett, Sun, Louisiana, 1969
- 12. Ten Lives, What They Teach Us, and Why They Matter
- Notes
- Additional Reading
- Index
About the author
Blake Gumprecht taught geography for more than two decades at the University of New Hampshire, the University of South Carolina, and the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of two previous books, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death, and Possible Rebirth and The American College Town, both of which won the American Association of Geographers' J. B. Jackson Prize. He now lives and writes in El Paso, Texas.
Summary
Between World War II and 1980, tens of thousands of Black people moved to Boston from the South as part of the Great Migration, one of the most consequential mass movements of people in American history. Black migration from the South transformed the city, as it did urban areas across the country. North to Boston is the first book to examine that important subject.
Blake Gumprecht traces the history of this migration and explores its impacts in greater depth through the lives of ten individuals, each the subject of one chapter. Those chapters are short biographies based on extensive interviews by the author and are told in an engaging style that reflects the author's background as a journalist.
The ten people featured came from six southern states. They fled racism, limited opportunity, and hopelessness, and moved north in pursuit of better jobs, equal treatment, and greater freedom. They settled in neighborhoods such as Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. They worked as teachers, factory workers, welders, and security guards. Their stories are emblematic of the experiences of Black people everywhere who left the South, and provide a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary people living in one city's Black community.
North to Boston brings to life the history of the Great Migration, revealing a hidden aspect of New England's history and shining a spotlight on a singularly important event in the making of Black Boston.
Additional text
North to Boston tells the important stories of ten of the tens of thousands of African Americans who were part of a till-now unexplored migration from the South to a northern city. Through the greater freedom and opportunity that they found and the work ethic and faith that they brought, these ten people built better lives and helped make 'cold roast Boston' a richer and warmer place.
