A Bronzeville Story
Elementary: Grades 3–4
Story
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"We're kind of late," Penny had replied. "Hope there's still something left." Daddy had laughed good at that one. She had a way of doubting. But Daddy had a way of smoothing away those doubts. Then he'd told her all about how they were part of a whole new second wave of the Great Migration.
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Thousands of southerners, mostly blacks and poor whites, were flooding north again for some of the same reasons they had before. A few years earlier, the U.S. had joined World War II. So again, better-paying jobs had opened up. Lots better schooling up there too, he'd told her. Even after the war ended in 1945, people just kept on migrating north.
"And they're going to keep on coming, I reckon," Daddy concluded. "I figure we're lucky to be coming up as soon as we are, rather than later."
Mama smiled wide. "That's right!" she said. "Chicago, here we come!"
Chicago. The word held the sound of a strange, new place. As the train chugged slowly into Illinois Central Station, Penny felt the knot in her stomach tighten. She'd had it ever since she'd learned they were leaving Mississippi. But her parents didn't seem to have a minute's doubt.
"It's for the best, Penny," her father reassured her again as they gathered their things to get off the train. "We'll find all kinds of good opportunities here that we'd never get down home. You'll see."
To pass time on the long ride, Penny and Cleet had read articles in the Chicago Defender. That was a newspaper her parents had been reading since even before they'd left Mississippi. The paper published a lot of good advice for newcomers, written by black folks who had been in Chicago a long time already and knew all the city ways.
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On one page Penny read an article about things a person must never do in public in the big northern cities, like cook on the street corner or wear your house dress outside. There were articles on politics and education, too, but those were harder to read.
The articles that interested Penny most were all the ones about the good things people of her race were accomplishing in Chicago. The paper talked all about how the migrants' coming had changed the whole face of the city. Given it all kinds of fresh new flavors and a strong new energy.
According to Daddy, the Defender was the most respected Negro newspaper in the country. So maybe, Penny figured, things would be good after all.
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