The Making of African America by Ira Berlin

Author:Ira Berlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US

Arrival in the North was an event in itself. As with the cruel separations from families and friends that had accompanied earlier migrations, few men and women would forget the rush that accompanied their entry into the North’s great metropoles. Richard Wright captured the mixed emotions as well as any. “My first glimpses of the flat black stretches of Chicago depressed and dismayed me, mocked all my fantasies,” recalled Wright. Chicago “seemed an unreal city whose mythical houses were built on slabs of black coal wreathed in palls of gray smoke, houses whose foundations were sinking slowly into the dank prairie.” Most newcomers, however, hardly had time for Wright’s sober reflections. Peering at the phalanx of humanity that gathered at the train or bus station—perhaps the largest assemblage they had ever witnessed—they searched for that familiar face that had promised to meet them while carefully avoiding eye contact with the hustlers who seemed to lurk everywhere. When at last that long-sought-after relative or friend hove into view, the new arrivals simultaneously breathed a sigh of relief and enjoyed a moment of jubilation. A firm hand guided the wide-eyed newcomer into the unknown.40

For many, the new world was as different from what they had known in the South as was frontier Alabama from their ancestors’ Virginia or as low-country Carolina was from their forebears’ Angola. The giant brick buildings, screeching streetcars, and neon lights were larger, louder, and brighter than anything they had known. Men and women scurried in all directions, seemingly heedless of one another and oblivious to the carefully choreographed racial protocols that governed every aspect of Southern life. Black men did not tip their hats to white men or scramble off the sidewalk to avoid a passing white woman. The previously ubiquitous COLORED ONLY signs were nowhere to be found.41

To be sure, the grand hopes for a better future were tempered by a deep understanding of the historic realities of race relations in the United States. The migrants were not surprised to learn that racial subordination would be as much a part of life in the North as it was in the South, although they would be shocked by the intensity, persistence, and novel forms it took. Eventually, some would conclude that the journey north changed nothing but the weather. But, upon arrival, the migrants looked forward to freedoms they had never known, from the simple act of taking their seat of choice in a public conveyance or having their vote courted. The promise of steady work, reasonable pay, and equal treatment seemed so utterly different from the ritual condescension and gross exploitation that they had known that it provided reason to celebrate.

Wonder at the marvels and possibilities of life in the North soon gave way to first purposes: to find regular, remunerative employment. While some migrants had jobs waiting, most began their stay in the North by searching for work. As they did, they entered into new terrain. For nearly a century, black men and women had

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