Make a Way Somehow: African-American Life in a Northern Community, 1790-1965In a groundbreaking book, Kathryn Grover reconstructs from their own writings the lives of African Americans in Geneva, New York, virtually from its beginning in the 1790s, to the time of the community's first civil rights march in 1965. She weaves together demographic evidence and narratives by black Americans to recount their lives within a white-controlled society. Make a Way Somehow, which reflects the tenor of the gospel song whence it came, is a complete and meaningful history of black Genevans, with a moving focus on the individual experience. The author traces five principal migrations of African Americans to northern cities: the forced migration of slaves from the East and South before 1820; the antebellum fugitive slave farm-to-town movement; the postwar migration of emancipated people; the so-called Great Migration between the two World Wars; and the last movement that began around 1938 and ended in 1960, which was precipitated by the need for workers in large-scale, commercial agriculture and the war-mobilization effort. Grover pieces together the lives of generations of African Americans in Geneva and delineates the local system of race relations from the city's social and economic standpoint. Black Genevans were kept at the fringes of society and worked in jobs that were temporary and scarce. While antislavery and suffrage work was common, it represented but a small portion of reform in towns whose broader sentiments opposed racial equality. In a work that spans more than a hundred years, the author establishes a context for understanding both the persistence of a small group of blacks and the transience of a great many others. |
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Make a way somehow: African-American life in a northern community, 1790-1965
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictGrover, an independent scholar in American history, has written a meticulously researched and fascinating examination of almost 200 years of African American life in Geneva, New York, a small Northern ... Read full review
Contents
Workers registering and taking quarters at Sampson | 46 |
Norman Kenney Charles Moore Paula Moore | 56 |
Hermine and Marie Whitaker about 1914 | 65 |
James Johnson Rose New York about 1920 | 71 |
Map of West Street house lots 17 May 1823 | 78 |
Old Families and New Families | 81 |
Johnson Whitaker and Hackett cousins on the Johnson porch 36 Bradford Street 19071908 | 84 |
South Exchange Street before demolition 21 March 1965 | 86 |
John Kenney at Geneva Foundry about 1950 | 159 |
Union Chapel Colored Interior High St about 1865 | 168 |
High Street Union Chapel 18691884 | 169 |
Nancy T P Lucas Curlin about 1880 | 170 |
South Branch School Madison Street about 1875 | 186 |
The church at High and Grove streets about 1915 | 190 |
High Street School classroom 26 April 1910 | 196 |
Prospect Avenue School secondgrade class 19621963 | 198 |
Ruth Sellers and her sons Herbert Albert and Larry at Dixon Homes June 1957 | 94 |
Margaret Douglass about 1875 | 104 |
Just What They Could Get to | 106 |
Paving Genesee Street Geneva 1898 | 115 |
On the front porch about 1900 | 118 |
Harriet Bias at age sixteen 1886 | 119 |
William Douglass 1875 | 125 |
Theodore Derby and Art Kenney 1900 | 135 |
Mary Georgetta Cleggett Kenney 19111913 | 136 |
Mary Kenneys chiropodist and hairdressing parlor about 1920 | 137 |
Lewis Scott shining shoes on South Exchange Street 19091913 | 138 |
Charles Gates at Dorchester and Rose hardware store 18981900 | 139 |
Inclusion and Exclusion | 158 |
Girls junior choir Trinity Episcopal Church 1952 | 208 |
Mount Calvary Church choir about 1953 | 209 |
Accommodation and Action | 214 |
Grand Celebration of Emancipation at Geneva N Y 1879 | 228 |
Broadside for St Philips Mission exhibition 11 April 1877 | 236 |
159 | 298 |
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Common terms and phrases
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Make a Way Somehow: African-American Life in a Northern Community, 1790-1965 New York State Series |
| Author | Kathryn Grover |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Syracuse University Press, 1995 |
| ISBN | 0815626266, 9780815626268 |
| Length | 336 pages |
| Subjects | › › › History / United States / State & Local / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |