Overview

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.

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9780197614440

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Reviews

Recommended. General readers and undergraduates. * Choice * Drawing on the life stories of men and women of a Roxbury church, Gumprecht offers a much-needed window on southern Black migration to Boston. Filling a glaring gap in the city's African American history, these stories vividly recount how migrants negotiated the transition from the segregated South to the urban North just as the country was grappling with the momentous changes spurred by the civil rights movement. * Marilynn S. Johnson, Author of The New Bostonians: How Immigrants Have Transformed the Metro Area Since the 1960s * Boston's Black population grew from 23,000 in 1940 to 104,000 in 1970. The published histories of Black Boston have focused on statistical indicators and on the stories of its famous and remarkable individuals. The vast majority-the people who make it a community-are almost never named. This volume begins to change that emphasis. Let us hope that these studies of 10 ordinary people are the beginning of extraordinary studies of the majority of Black folk in Boston and elsewhere. * Byron Rushing, Former President, Museum of African American History * 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. * Jim Vrabel, Author of A People's History of the New Boston * In this fine, detailed treatment of 10 individuals who migrated north, readers learn of the paradoxes of the migration and the subsequent experiences of living in the North. Moving north did not mean leaving behind racist discrimination, lack of economic opportunity, or even violence. The supposedly progressive Boston, where 19th-century abolitionists protected fleeing enslaved persons in the elite Brahmin enclave of Beacon Hill, was not what many experienced, and they suffered also from the disdain of the earlier settled Black population. Most of the stories...are positive, proud stories of carving out a solid life in Boston, raising families, working hard, gaining the respect of their peers, and leading lives of faith. Recommended. * Choice *

Recommended. General readers and undergraduates. * Choice *

Author Information

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.

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