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. |