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. |
Contents
Prologue | 1 |
The west branch district school on High Street about 1870 | 2 |
Burtons Hotel Exchange Street about 18881894 | 6 |
Copyright | |
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Afri African Ameri African Americans African-American population Americans in Geneva aunt Austin Steward Baptist born brother Brown canal census Charles church Civil Cleggett colored Courtesy Geneva Historical daughter Dixon domestic Duffin farm father foundry Frederick Douglass fugitive Garnet Geneva Gazette Geneva High School Geneva Historical Society Geneva's African Americans George Gerrit Smith Gillam Hardy Henry Henry Highland Garnet high school High Street School hired Hobart Hotel households James John John Bland Kenney Kenney's labor Linzy Lucas Main Street married Methodist migration mother moved Negro neva North Ontario County percent Presbyterian probably Prue Rochester Roenkes Rose Sampson Samuel Ward segregated Seneca Lake Seneca Township slavery slaves social southern Sunday school Syracuse things tion took Trinity VanTuyl village village's wanted Ward Wayne County West Whitaker wife William William Wells Brown women workers York
References to this book
I Will Wear No Chain!: A Social History of African American Males Christopher B. Booker No preview available - 2000 |