"Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration NarrativeTwentieth-century America has witnessed the most widespread and sustained movement of African-Americans from the South to urban centers in the North. Who Set You Flowin'? examines the impact of this dislocation and urbanization, identifying the resulting Migration Narratives as a major genre in African-American cultural production. Griffin takes an interdisciplinary approach with readings of several literary texts, migrant correspondence, painting, photography, rap music, blues, and rhythm and blues. From these various sources Griffin isolates the tropes of Ancestor, Stranger, and Safe Space, which, though common to all Migration Narratives, vary in their portrayal. She argues that the emergence of a dominant portrayal of these tropes is the product of the historical and political moment, often challenged by alternative portrayals in other texts or artistic forms, as well as intra-textually. Richard Wright's bleak, yet cosmopolitan portraits were countered by Dorothy West's longing for Black Southern communities. Ralph Ellison, while continuing Wright's vision, reexamined the significance of Black Southern culture. Griffin concludes with Toni Morrison embracing the South "as a site of African-American history and culture," "a place to be redeemed." |
Contents
| 3 | |
Reasons for Leaving the South | 13 |
The Initial Confrontation with the Urban Landscape | 48 |
Navigating the Urban Landscape | 100 |
4 To Where from Here? The Final Vision of the Migration Narrative | 142 |
Thoughts on Jazz | 184 |
Notes | 199 |
| 219 | |
| 227 | |
Other editions - View all
"Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative Farah Jasmine Griffin Limited preview - 1996 |
"Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative Farah Jasmine Griffin Limited preview - 1995 |
"Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative Farah Jasmine Griffin No preview available - 1995 |
Common terms and phrases
12 Million Black African-American Afro-American Alice Walker American American Hunger Amiri Baraka ancestor artists asserts Baldwin Baraka beauty Bessie Bigger Billie Holiday black bodies black middle class black migrants black Southerners black women blues lyrics Bonner Brewster Place Cane characters Chicago church Cleo colored confrontation create critical consciousness desire dominant dreams Ellison embodies emerges father fiction Gloria Naylor Gwendolyn Brooks Harlem Helga Invisible James Baldwin Jazz Jean Toomer Kabnis kitchenette land literary lives Lutie lynching Macon Dead Malcolm Malcolm X Mattie migrants migration narrative Milkman Million Black Voices murder Negro North Northern novel numbers cited nurturing oppression painting photographs portray portrayal possibility protagonist provides race racial resistance Richard Wright safe space sense sexual significant Song of Solomon Southern black spiritual story stranger Toni Morrison Toomer tradition University Press urban landscape violence white woman Women of Brewster Wonder's writers York