BOOKCLUB MAVENS! (A gender-neutral term, I’ll have you know). This week I am here to suggest that my book would be superperfect for your next gathering. I’ve done some major research in my day when it comes to book clubs, let me tell you. And it occurs to me that my new book, Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark would make for a great book club book.

After some thorough Googling (!) I have found that there are certain factors involved that make for an excellent book club book. I will now share a few of those factors and provide support as to why my book satisfies these requirements. (Can you tell I’m in the midst of teaching composition right now)?!

Okay, for one thing the book apparently needs to have enough substance for robust discussion. I can assure you that my book is substantive and prime for discussion. You can talk church, baseball, music, politics, labor issues, art, fire, race, cities, historic preservation and rebellions. Something for everybody! For example, take these excerpts from Chapter One which details the story of why the esteemed Krueger-Scott Mansion couldn’t ever quite get turned into the Black Cultural Center so many wanted it to be.

The Mansion was the proverbial elephant described very differently by each individual in a group of blind men. The edifice symbolized an outdated Newark for some, a point away from which the city needed to move. Others saw the house as a reflection of the long history of the people who came to Newark and who were in large part responsible for what it had become – a modern city of culture, trade, and learning. The Mansion’s beauty – and value – were in the eye of the beholder. Lou Danzig, Newark Housing Authority (NHA) Director, declared it a “monstrosity” in 1966 at one particularly contentious public hearing. At the same meeting J. Stewart Johnson, curator for the Newark Museum and president of the Victorian Society of America, argued for the protection of the Mansion, out of respect for the city’s early history. “…We are destroying the 19^th century here as fast as we possibly can,” he warned.

In 1979 the Krueger-Scott Mansion was still in fair condition, although it had suffered a fire on the third floor which “damaged the structure’s heating system” and “destroyed the dome’s crystal skylight.” The following year the City of Newark made its first investment in the Mansion’s preservation, approving a $50,000 grant for “emergency repairs.”  The Mansion had finally made its way into the conversation that was already surrounding several local historic preservation efforts. “Mrs. Scott is to be admired for holding onto the mansion for so long…” said Margaret Mandhart of the Newark Preservation and Landmarks Committee in 1981. The hope was that Scott’s hard work would not be in vain.

The physical realities of what it would take to reconstruct and repair the Mansion were becoming ever clearer, although of course not everyone agreed just what those realities were. A July 1991 report by Glenn Boornazian Architectural Conservators stated that removing the stucco surface (that was probably applied by the Scottish Rite Masons) in a non-destructive manner from the brick was “unfeasible if not impossible.” (Handwritten next to that section on the document is the word, “shit,” circled and with an exclamation mark).

Catherine Lenix-Hooker [executive director of the project] has asserted that the Krueger-Scott African-American Cultural Center project was not a failure, that they “went the distance” with what they had. A dwindling tax base, concerns over struggling schools, and corruption in government are just some of the reasons she gave for the inability to finish what was started. Mayor [Sharpe]James has insisted that cost came in as the number one issue surrounding the Mansion project, followed closely by just who would control what once it was finally completed. “Cost and control ruled the day!!!” exclaimed James. The simple conclusion is that economics vanquished this historic preservation effort. When asked, both Lenix-Hooker and James were adamant that race played no part in the Mansion’s demise. But as late historian Clement A. Price said many times, including in his documentary, The Once and Future Newark, “Race matters in America. Race matters in Newark.” Race matters in the story of the Krueger-Scott project.

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How’s that for a soap opera starring a mansion?! The good news is that the property has finally been restored, but alas, not as a Black Cultural Center.

Second on the book-club-factor-list is that the book has to be widely available. Well, I think we all know by now how widely available this puppy is. (See its link in the first paragraph). Of course, I prefer you order it through the publisher – as opposed to that other place that starts with an A. (See just the latest in a list of labor exploitations this company perpetrates upon its workers). But do you. The book can also be purchased from me, if you live nearby OR if you attend one of my upcoming events. You could even get it personalized that way!

Another suggestion is that book club books not be too long. Well, mine is a tidy 170 pages – with pictures, too! Plus, don’t be freaked out that it’s from an academic press. If you’re reading this now then know I write in pretty plain English — no jargon here. In fact I was literally told in grad school that I didn’t write like a historian and, well, that felt like a good thing. Who wants to write like a something? I’m a storyteller and everyone loves stories!

And get this, I would come to your meeting (as long as wine and cheese are available, of course). I’ll even Zoom in if you’re far away from me — and then have my own wine and cheese. Plus I can provide some discussion questions for you all if you’d like. It’d be fun! I’ve been in book clubs where the author comes and it just changes everything. Of course you probably won’t want to be too snarky when they’re there, so easy on the Chardonnay if that’s something that happens to you. (Talking to myself here)!

So yeah, read my book; review it on Goodreads (and other sites); then suggest it to your book club. Let’s keep learning our history – but not be bored in the process. Thanks!

“SOUTHERN TOWN.” The term can evoke images of racism and violence. And this was the case quite often, through the 20^th century – and of course still occurring even today. But, as oral histories are so wonderful in reminding us, nothing and no one is all one thing. And the interviews from the Krueger-Scott African-American Oral History Project that appear in my book also remind us that not every Black migrant left an agricultural life – another image we often see through depictions of this historical event. After all, some folks came from the cities; they abandoned spaces both rural and urban, as they headed north, east, and west. And while this Migration may have started out “by the hundreds,” in the end approximately six million humans uprooted themselves, and their loved ones, from their homes to escape whatever it was they no longer could abide by. Hence a Great Migration. Below I am going to share some bits of discussion around this leaving. And, as you know by now, you can always order my book to read so very many more of these kinds of stories.

Louise Scott, who left Florence (probably), South Carolina in 1936, became a millionaire beauty culturist in Newark, NJ. She built an empire, running many businesses out of the Krueger-Scott Mansion on High Street (now MLK Blvd.). A foundation has been created to honor and continue her legacy, the Newark Scott Civic and Cultural Foundation. And many of the narrators in my book speak of Madam Scott and the Mansion; she was an integral part of the Black Newark community for decades.

Now, the City of Florence was chartered in 1871 by the Reconstruction government and ultimately named after a railroad magnate’s daughter. Florence was what many might imagine as a place African Americans would leave, if they could, for “a better life.” Sharecropping, for example, was a major occupation for many Black citizens, growing mostly rice and tobacco. And if you know anything about the system of sharecropping, then you know it was not really set up to benefit those who worked within it.

Attorney Eugene Thompson spoke about his mother working as a domestic while living in Norfolk, Virginia. But she moved to Newark, met her husband, and gave birth to her son. Eugene. Mr. Thompson’s father, a journalist, was born in Memphis, Tennessee, and just “followed the Mississippi River,” finally ending up in Newark, according to Thompson.

In 1923, Norfolk’s city limits were expanded as it annexed several cities, while also adding a naval base and miles of beach property. The Norfolk Naval Base grew rapidly because of World War I, and this created a housing shortage in the area. I would imagine that then, like now, those most affected by the housing shortage were the poor and working class. And at that time, that would mean a preponderance of African Americans.

Memphis, Tennessee is well known today for many things, including its music scene. I visited the city last summer on a civil rights tour. It was a hard place to be Black person for a very long time, even though many famous African Americans lived their lives in Memphis — including W.C. Handy and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Cotton was still “king” there, even in the early 20^th century – and racist violence was rampant, including lynchings.

Matthew Little, retired factory worker for General Motors, was born in Starr, South Carolina. In his interview, he was explaining differences between northerners and southerners in terms of attire:

“Oh, in the South you wore what they call overalls, with suspenders, and here they even wore coveralls, which covered the whole body, you know. And in the South, especially in the country, they wash their shirts and overalls and starch ‘em and wear ‘em on Sunday. Instead of dressing in suits and ties.”

Starr, South Carolina was founded in the late 1830s under the name Twiggs. It was renamed Starr in honor of Captain W.W. Starr, another railroad official. Like many southern cities it was an agricultural hub, with early 20th-century “stately” homes — as the publicity material called them — including the Evergreen Plantation. (You can have your wedding there, if you’d like). More than 400 individuals were enslaved at Evergreen Plantation over the course of 150 years. That’s a tough culture to break, and probably a tough place to be an African American, even decades later.

Mary Roberts, a retired Newark Public Schools teacher and one-time district leader of the South Ward, was also thinking of fashion in her interview. Her memories took her back to her childhood in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“My mother washed the little white girls’ dresses, and I would just admire them, they were so pretty. I think that’s why I have a lot of clothes now. Because I always said ‘One day I’m going to have those pretty dresses.’”

Sometimes it’s necessary to read between the lines when researching the history of American cities. For example, one piece of material states that between, “1902 and 1905, [Greensboro] was the largest cotton mill in the south and produced more denim than any other mill in the world. In the northeast part of the city, the Cones built hundreds of homes for their workers in villages surrounding their mills.” Consider who worked in these “mills” and what the housing was like. In my own book, a terrifying memory of cotton mill housing is recounted by one of the interviewees. And well, fast forward some decades to Greensboro’s famous “sit-ins” of the civil rights movement. Clearly, things had yet to improve there, as far as many African Americans were concerned.

Pauline Faison Mathis was born in 1932 in Clinton, North Carolina. Speaking of fashion, Mathis tried to get a job at the famous Bamberger’s department store in Newark, sometime around the early 1950s. But she was told that she “wouldn’t like it” because she was so educated. “That was the word going then, ‘You have too much education, you wouldn’t be too happy here,’” explained Mathis.

I came upon several history publications about Clinton that literally didn’t mention African Americans or Black people. This is how our history still gets told, as if they were never there. As if Pauline Faison Mathis’ family didn’t have a life in Clinton at one time. A particular name comes up regularly in searching the African-American history search of the city: Charles Clinton Spaulding. He was apparently known as “Mr. Negro Business” and established the famous Black insurance company, North Carolina Mutual. Oh, and in 2018 numerous unmarked graves of enslaved people were discovered in the town. So there’s that.

As Jacob Lawrence tells us, African-American migrants were leaving southern towns. Florence, Norfolk, Memphis… Starr, Greensboro, Clinton… This departure was done in such a manner that a name had to ultimately be provided for the situation: the Great Migration. It changed our country; African Americans transformed the United States. We need to understand how – and why. And so, until next time, let’s keep learning our history!

JACOB LAWRENCE WAS A JERSEY KID, and an artist whose work many of us are familiar with – even if we don’t know his name. Lawrence was born in Atlantic City, his parents a part of the Great Migration. But he moved to Harlem as a teenager and spent most of life there. And while his art deeply reflects the influence of that mid-20^th-century Harlem neighborhood, one famous series of his stands out from this theme. Lawrence’s Migration Series is based upon stories he heard his family tell as he was growing up, and throughout his time in New York. These were stories of the Great Migration. And if you, too, are interested in stories of the Great Migration, well, then you can always order my book!

Lawrence’s painting above is the first of the 60-panel Migration Series. The series was completed in 1941, funded in part by the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It was to be viewed as one piece in his thinking, not 60 separate works of art, because it told one continuous story. Perhaps we can even think of each painting as a chapter in his unwritten book. Ultimately, two museums would split this collection – New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and Washington DC’s Phillips Collection. At times they have collaborated to show this whole series together, and I was able to view one such exhibit, entitled “One-Way Ticket,” at MoMA in 2015. Every panel, by the way, includes a caption. Lawrence initially wrote these captions in the 1940s, but as language and culture (somewhat) evolved he made modifications to most all of them in 1993, prior to an upcoming exhibit of his work. Most commonly, the word “negro” was changed to “Black” or “African American.”

The commencement date of the Great Migration differs depending upon whom you ask. Many, like Lawrence, place its origins around the beginning of WWI, some calling that the First Great Migration. (The “second” would come around the time of WWII). But African Americans were certainly leaving the South for places North, East, and West way before then. For example, in Newark, New Jersey, the African-American Bethany Baptist Church was already being established in 1870, when a group met together in Deacon Jackson Watson’s home at 187 Commerce Street. The church became officially sanctioned in 1871. The need for Black churches was growing as migrants moved from the South. And Bethany Baptist continues to be central to many African-American religious lives today, even as some have moved far outside the city limits within which they first lived.

The Great Migration, as with so many migration streams, can be characterized by both pushes and pulls. Pushing Black Americans out of the South at this time was the continued and escalating violence directed at Black southerners; many whites resented the “freedoms” that they were enjoying for the first time. As well, for African Americans in the rural south – and remember, not everyone who left the south came from a farm! – agricultural disasters quite often precipitated the departure. And finally, there was the hope for a life less fettered by racism. A hope that some felt was dashed, while others discovered was well worth the trip. As former mayor Sharpe James said towards the end of his Krueger-Scott interview:

Newark has given me everything, and the only thing I want to do is give something back to the city that took this poor boy who was a transient from the south, gave him hope, gave him love, kept him alive, gave him an education.

The period around WWI saw a lot happening in this country, and participants of the Great Migration were key to many of these events, directly and indirectly. For example, George Baker, known as Father Divine and the self-proclaimed God incarnate, was from the South — North Carolina or Maryland, depending upon what records one reviews. Divine started the multiracial International Peace Mission Movement sometime around 1915 in the Brooklyn, New York area, and ended up becoming one of the most revered and followed religious leaders of the time period. So much so that many would even call his organization a cult. There is plenty of discussion about Divine by the narrators in my book — from the live radio shows he recorded, to the lavish, yet extremely cheap, meals he would host at the Riviera Hotel.

In April 1935, the Newark Evening News described a banquet attended by Father Divine where there were “baskets of fruit and candy everywhere. More than 500 men, women and children were seated at the table and at least that many stood around the perimeter. From the audience a woman shouted, ‘Oh father, our Saviour, I love you.’ Father Divine sat in a satin-backed chair at the head of the banquet table. Every course passed through his hands.”

For Father Divine, leaving the South meant reinventing himself. He chose to leave his past behind so intentionally that very little is known of his family or birthplace. Although he died in 1965, Divine’s followers still participate in some of the Mission’s proscribed rituals today, carrying on his traditions and ideology throughout this country. Recent pieces in mainstream papers and journals can attest to this fact.

In terms of work at this time, studies show that prior to 1917 approximately 75% of African Americans in the country were “gainfully employed, mostly in domestic and ‘personal service’ jobs.” The war provided many of them a chance to leave these sorts of jobs, to work in factories and shipyards and earn more money than ever before. (Yet not typically equal to what the white laborers were making). But as would happen again post-World War II, after World War I when the white soldiers returned home to work, suddenly the recently hired Black laborers (and women, for that matter) were deemed no longer competent or capable to remain in those positions. “Last hired, first fired” would be the employment model for many a decade to come.

So there will be more on labor shortages, the influx of Black workers, and the changing landscape of U.S. cities in the early 20^th century in next week’s blog. Until then, let’s keep learning our history!

I HAVE A NEW BOOK as some of you know, out from Rutgers University Press: Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark. Last year I spent some time writing about the subject matter of my book through the images of the painter. Jacob Lawrence’s, Great Migration series. So many readers enjoyed the art — whether as a reminder of how much they loved his work, or as introduction to a brand new artist. And I learned, through discussion around my book, that many people are just plain unfamiliar with the historical era and/or term, Great Migration. So, through images and words, I’d like to share stories of this pivotal time in American history. The dialogue included here comes from the oral histories contained within Alien Soil. And if you want to read more, well, then you can always order my book!

Today I want to start with some prose you might be familiar with; it is the inspiration for my book title. Have you read Black Boy yet?

Yet, deep down, I knew that I could never really leave the South, for my feelings had already been formed by the South, for there had been slowly instilled into my personality and consciousness, black though I was, the culture of the South. So, in leaving, I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns, and, perhaps, to bloom . . .

Richard Wright. Black Boy [1945 edition]

You might recognize the tail end of this quote, “…the warmth of other suns…” as the title of Isabel Wilkerson’s wonderful book on the Great Migration. And while the narrators of the Krueger-Scott African-American Oral History Project — the stars of my book — found warmth at times under the Newark, New Jersey sun, they also experienced quite often that they were living on alien soil. It didn’t look the same, feel the same, or even smell the same. And sometimes that was a good thing, but even good things can feel strange at first.

“The culture of the South,” as Wright puts it, takes shape in numerous ways for the participants of the Great Migration. In the discussions between narrator and interviewer in the oral history collection (who were always familiar with each other, which is unusual for an oral history project) we hear about the foods of childhood, chores performed that had no place in the concrete neighborhoods of Newark, and traditions clung to even while assimilating to Northern ways.

I always remember how you stop trains in the South at the location, build a fire by the railroad. The train stopped. We got on it…”

– Sharpe James, former Newark mayor

Folks sure didn’t have to do that in Newark — or in other major cities that so many Southern Blacks migrated to. After all, Newark’s Penn Station provided an organized system of trains, schedules, and ticket booths instead. Now, there are stories that some migrants, intending on living in New York City, errantly disembarked in Newark. Why? Because when the conductor, with his East Coast accent announced, “Newark, Penn Station,” it sounded very much like, “New York, Penn Station” to some. I have yet to find a person to attest to this through personal experience, but it makes for a good story, anyway. And isn’t that what history is, a chain of human stories fit together like puzzle pieces in order to create a bigger picture.

In her oral history interview, Senator Wynona Lipman, the first African-American woman elected to the New Jersey Senate, and the longest-serving member of the State Senate, was asked by Mrs. Glen Marie Brickus if she knew anybody who used snuff or chewing tobacco. Oral histories are so wonderful in the way that one question can often lead to an unlikely response. The great minds of the late historians Giles Wright and Dr. Clem Price created a questionnaire based on this understanding.

Lipman: Oh, the snuff, yes. Snuff, the lady who helped us do the washing, at the wash pot outside, you know, where you boiled your clothes for washing over a fire. Oh, she was a snuff dipper I tell you. And my father chewed tobacco. Yes.

Brickus: Oh yeah. Yeah, we had one of those wash pots in the backyard. And somebody had to go and build a fire on the wash day.

Lipman: I remember killing pigs, too. And making crackling.

Brickus: Oh really? Yeah, we did too, we did too.

Lipman: We had chickens, and all of that.

Brickus: We did too. We raised chickens and guineas and there was, you know, you’d wait for special kinds of days as far as the weather to kill hogs. And then you may kill three or four or more at a time. And I can remember seeing them strung up. You know, they’d put up these special poles, with the poles across the top and hang them up there.

Lipman: We had a smoke house.

Brickus: We did too. They would first salt the meat down for so long, and then take it out and hang it up and smoke it. Keep the fire going day and night to smoke the meat. And it would never spoil.

Lipman. No.

Brickus: You could keep it indefinitely and it would never spoil.

Lipman: It was wonderful. We had a cow until the town made us get rid of it. Senator Lipman concluded this conversation with an assertion that farming was a hard life, and Brickus ended this section of the interview saying, “Oh, we have more in common than we knew about.”

Talk about an opportunity to “see” the South in a way so many of us non-Southerners will ever get to. Now, granted this is the rural South, which is not what all of the land below the Mason-Dixon line looks like now – nor did then. Certainly, African Americans from the southern cities also left their homes for better jobs and somewhat less racism (although it often tended just to be more different than less). But because of a confluence of agricultural issues, especially around the early 1900s, those living off the land often had to leave that land behind. There will be more on this later.

Alright, thanks for reading the first installment of my own Great Migration series. Not as artfully done as Jacob Lawrence, but perhaps with the same intention: to ensure that the story of the people who left their homes for “a better life,” and in turn transformed our country for the better, get told. Tune in next time for a look at WWI and the Great Migration. Until then, keep learning our history!

THANKS TO SKIN CANCER I FORGOT HOW TO BE IN THE MOMENT. What I mean is that I spent so much time since June 26 (who’s counting?) anticipating the other side of this debaucle that I got out of practice of the whole Being thing. I mean, I tried to be present, grateful, all that stuff. Like what I wrote about before. And for the record, someone just the other told me they had no idea what I was going through and how limited I was by it all — so I must have been soldiering on pretty well. (Which is not exactly the same as staying present, but…). What I’m saying is that I made an effort to stay in my body, but there was a lot of impetus to depart.

I’m still slowly reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. One idea that he asks the reader to accept is that we are our bodies, but not those impermanent ones prone to disease and death. There’s an Inner Body he speaks of and I think that might be the place the Holy Spirit resides, for those of us who track with that particular idea. The point is, we’re supposed to become one with a thing that for so many people — for so many centuries — has represented more evil than good. “If the master is not present in the house,” Tolle writes, ” all kinds of shady characters will take up residence there” (124). Religion, he argues (and I think a lot of folks would agree) has interrupted up this relationship with body, focusing too often on the superficial one while leaving the spiritual one far out of the conversation. Some religious practices actually require denial of the body, like with fasting. Or corporeal self-punishment, like self-flaggelation, which is apparently still a thing in some parts.

So why did I come to the conclusion that I’m out of practice of the mindfulness that has been so central to my life for so long? I’ll tell you why, because when I finally had the time to watch my thoughts, they were hurdling down the freeway at about 100 miles an hour, even as I sat quietly overlooking Maine’s coastal harbor, the gentle sound of water lapping against the dark shimmering rocks, soft sunlight warming my shoulders (though not my face of course, because damned if I’m going to cook these scars into my visage!). So there I was, ensconced in what could very well have passed as the requisite photo accompanying the dictionary definition of “bucolic” and I was wondering what my flights home might be like:

Middle seat again? And how was I even going to get to the Portland airport? Would it really cost $125? Maybe I shouldn’t have stayed those extra nights. That was a lot of money. Would I be teaching two courses this fall to cover all these big bills that were coming because I was living it up in Maine for a week? And when was I going to grade those summer session papers? Would that one student hassle me about her grade some more? Where did she learn to gaslight? Why is that term so popular these days anyway? Were more people doing it, or is it just a vocabulalric trend? I need to get that fall syllabus written for my new job. How much will I change it? For time’s sake I should probably just keep it the way it is, but I know I’m not going to because I want to incorporate Western history in there. Why don’t we learn about the West back East? What did I learn about California in high school civics, besides about the Gold Rush? That was my 4th grade project, I wrote a fictitious journal about a gold miner, probably after reading the Encyclopedia Brittanica about gold mining.

I was also wondering:

How far have I just walked on the beach? Is that app on the phone really accurate? Why do I care about the number anyway? Because I haven’t been able to work out for almost 2 months so all movement is crucial, that’s why. I have a lot of work to do to get back in shape. Plus I’m eating like a horse. Why were all those lobster rolls so expensive — did I really need to get three of them on the trip? I promised I would eat lobster here but why really? Do I even like lobster?

And:

Are these scars really going to heal? Am I going to have a bumpy face forever? Did I walk too long in the arroyo last weekend and not put on enough sunscreen ? I have SPF 75 now. But then I think I read that anything over 30 is overkill. But it’s a Neutrogena product that I paid a lot of money for, so it should be accurate. Why do I spend money like that? I don’t usually. I was just trying to save my face. I hope the photos people took at the wedding make me look normal. The scar on my cheek is okay but the nose thing looks creepy. I hope there’s some good photos I can share on Instagram. What kind of captions will I write? Should I write about it being a gay wedding, or does that just sound like I’m trying to show how woke I am? But it was a gay wedding and that’s something to celebrate. I want to celebrate that. Even though one of those grooms hassled me too much about whether I was coming to the wedding or not…

Anyway…

Tolle says “Presence is pure consciousness — consciousness that has been reclaimed from the mind, from the world of form.” I think it’s fair to say that I was un-conscious a lot of the time these past few months, relative to my usual state of being anyway. I was out of practice. Because not only had I been limited in my physical activity, by doctor’s orders, I had apparently ordered my own mental activity to be limited as well. Limited to possibility, and dreaming, and adventure, and curiousity–and stillness, most importantly of all. I forgot how to be still, in mind and inner body. Meanwhile my outer body was just about as still as it’s ever been.

But now I am back from my vacation, and on the other side of this medical saga. Back to the gym, and back to my spiritual practices. And it’s okay that I strayed. We all do sometimes, straying off into the worldly and material. But, the good news is that if we have been practicing something pretty regularly for a while, it comes back to us quickly once we re-enter its space. Sort of like how my French starts to return whenever I land in Paris! Practice makes perfect…practice, maybe. I am back to perfecting my practice of being in the now and it feels really, really good. Why, I hardly am even thinking about how I have to upload all the reading assignments on my new college’s education platform which I am totally unfamiliar with — hardly thinking of that at all…