Foreword by Lerone Bennett and Valerie Gerrard Browne
In the second volume of Bridges of Memory, historian Timuel D. Black Jr. continues his conversations with African-Americans who migrated to Chicago from the South in search of economic, social, and cultural opportunities. With his trademark gift for interviewing, Black—himself the son of first-generation migrants to Chicago--guides these individual discussions with ease, resulting in first-person narratives that are informative and entertaining.
This distinctive collection features writings from Grant Pick’s long, distinguished career in literary journalism. Pick had a uniquely open eye and ear for people who were in difficult situations, doing extraordinary things, or both. Most of his stories focus on interesting but overlooked Chicagoans, like the struggling owner of a laundrymat on the west side or the successful doctor who, as he faced his own death from cancer, strove to enlighten his colleagues in the field of medicine. As only a lifetime Chicagoan could, he described in tender detail the worlds in which people lived or worked, providing a look not just at one city’s citizens but at humanity as a whole.
Recipient of 2007 The Hyde Park Historical Society Paul Cornell Award
Oral history in the first order, Bridges of Memory brings to life a wide cross-section of African Americans voices vividly recollecting a neighborhood, a city, a society, and a people undergoing dramatic and unprecedented change. Timuel D. Black Jr., one of Chicago's leading African American historians, presents the first of three volumes of oral history, this one focusing on Chicago's first wave of black migration from the South.
