Manchild in the Promised Land [antikvár]

ForewordI WANT to talk about the first Northern urtan genionof , Negroes. I want to talk aboutof a misplaced people in an ^tremely complex, [Society. This is a stojr of tljeir se^mm, itheir dreams, rro'^ their si^l and fuiSe' rebellioiS,'^ their end-^tue to i'^ataish their own place in America's greatest and in America itself..The characters are sons and daughters of former Southern sharecroppers. These were the DDore^P^jple of the South, who poured mto New Yorkdecadeth^^ .Great Depression. These m^nm^is^ere told that imliimted^bp-portunities for prosperity existed in New York and that there was no "color problem" there. They were told that Negroes lived in houses with bathrooms, electricity, running water, and indoor toilets. To them, this was the "promised land" that Mammy had been singing about in the cotton fields for many years.Going to New York was good-bye to the cotton fields, goodbye to "Massa Charhe," good-bye to the chain gang, and, most of all, good-bye to those sunup-to-sundown working hourS;, One no longer had to wait to get to heaven to lay his burdeir^<<^ down; burdens could be laid down in New York.So, they came, from all parts of the South, like all the black chUlun^o'. ^dfollowing the sound of Gabriel's horn on that long-ovei-aue Judgment Day. The Georgians came as soon as they were able to pick train fare off the peach trees. They came jW from South Carolina where the cotton stalks were bare. The North Carolinians came with tobacco tar beneath their finger-nails.xayL(LMI They felt as the Pilgrims must have felt when they were coming to America. But these descendants of Ham must have ^ b^ twice as happ^^p the PUgrims, because they had been jL ^C^hing twice the neit Even whUe planning the trip, they sang ^ fspirituails as "Jesus Take My Hand" and "I'm On My Way" ^ and chanted, "Hallelujah, I'm on my way to the promised land!"Cv-cV'peJC -yJi