Search results for ""author blake gumprecht""

Between World War II and 1980, tens of thousands of Black people moved to Boston from the South as part of the Great Migration, one of the most consequential mass movements of people in American history. Black migration from the South transformed the city, as it did urban areas across the country. North to Boston is the first book to examine that important subject. Blake Gumprecht traces the history of this migration and explores its impacts in greater depth through the lives of ten individuals, each the subject of one chapter. Those chapters are short biographies based on extensive interviews by the author and are told in an engaging style that reflects the author's background as a journalist. The ten people featured came from six southern states. They fled racism, limited opportunity, and hopelessness, and moved north in pursuit of better jobs, equal treatment, and greater freedom. They settled in neighborhoods such as Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan. They worked as teachers, factory workers, welders, and security guards. Their stories are emblematic of the experiences of Black people everywhere who left the South, and provide a rare glimpse into the lives of ordinary people living in one city's Black community. North to Boston brings to life the history of the Great Migration, revealing a hidden aspect of New England's history and shining a spotlight on a singularly important event in the making of Black Boston.

Read more less

Three centuries ago, the Los Angeles River meandered through marshes and forests of willow and sycamore. Trout spawned in its waters and grizzly bears roamed its shores. The bountiful environment the river helped create supported one of the largest concentrations of Indians in North America. Today, the river is made almost entirely of concrete. Chain-link fence and barbed wire line its course. Shopping carts and trash litter its channel. Little water flows in the river most of the year, and nearly all that does is treated sewage and oily street runoff. On much of its course, the river looks more like a deserted freeway than a river. The river's contemporary image belies its former character and its importance to the development of Southern California. Los Angeles would not exist were it not for the river, and the river was crucial to its growth. Recognizing its past and future potential, a potent movement has developed to revitalize its course. The Los Angeles River offers the first comprehensive account of a river that helped give birth to one of the world's great cities, significantly shaped its history, and promises to play a key role in its future.

Read more less