Up South

Stories, Studies, and Letters of This Century’s African American Migrations
Edited by:

Perhaps the greatest migration in America’s history is the early twentieth-century movement of African Americans from the southern states to the urban Northeast and Midwest. For the first time ever, Up South captures the totality of this pivotal black experience in a single volume. Including photographs, letters, and turn-of-the-century items in the Chicago Defender, Crisis, and Opportunity, as well as writing by Zora Neale Hurston, James Weldon Johnson, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, Arna Bontemps, Mary McLeod Bethune, and W.E.B. Du Bois, Up South is a moving and eye-opening anthology of African American literature, scholarship, and journalism from the first half of this century.

Praise

“Splendidly edited by Malaiko Adero, Up South is an invaluble treasure-trove of material on the journeys that created African American modernity.”
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., Harvard University
“Overwhelmingly poignant; the longings and hopes of migrants com through strongly . . . the letters, aching with the hope of a better life, are especially moving.”
The Boston Globe
“Fascinating stories of tee frustrations, achievements and dreams of migrating families”
—Herbert Mitgang, the New York Times
“An impressive . . . kaleidoscope of stories.”
Library Journal

Goodreads Reviews