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MEDIA CONTACT: Wendy
Leopold at (847) 491-4890 or at w-leopold@northwestern.edu
January 27, 2004
Black Experience Is Discussion Topic
EVANSTON, Ill. --- The African American experience in Chicago and
on the North Shore will be the subject of a discussion titled “Discovering
our Roots: The Historical and Cultural Legacy of Black Communities
in Chicago and Evanston” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3, at Northwestern
University. Free and open to the public, the event features Timuel
D. Black Jr., author of the newly published oral history titled “Bridges
of Memory: Chicago’s First Wave of Black Migration,” and
Dino Robinson, founder of the historical organization and journal
Shorefront. Their presentation will take place in Room 102, University
Hall, 1897 Sheridan Road, on the University’s Evanston campus.
Black will discuss the African American experience in Chicago; Robinson will
speak about that experience in Evanston and on the North Shore. Black will sign
books after the presentation.
Black’s “Bridges of Memory” is the first volume in a greatly
anticipated collection of African American oral histories co-published by Northwestern
University Press and the DuSable Museum of African American History. It includes
36 interviews from a cross-section of African Americans who left the South for
the North in search of political freedom and opportunity. Drawing from his deeply
rooted Chicago connections, Black interviewed individuals from all walks of life.
The oral history provides “a lens into the choices, disappointments, work,
family, cultural community and race relations that shaped the lives of Black
Chicagoans,” said Chicago Historical Society president Lonnie Bunch, adding
the city is made richer and more accessible by Black’s work. It includes
forewords by Chicago icon Studs Terkel and acclaimed historian John Hope Franklin.
For information about the Feb. 3 event, call African American Student Affairs
at (847) 491-3610. For information on “Bridges of Memory,” contact
Northwestern University Press at (847) 491-5315 or visit www.nupress.northwestern.edu.
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