North to Boston: Life Histories from the Black Great Migration in New England

Summary

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.