Describes the period of the 20th century when many African Americans left the South to make better lives for themselves in the northern states.

An acclaimed cultural critic presents the story of her journey to understand her northern and southern roots, the Great Migration, and the displacement of black people across America.

Discusses the conditions of African Americans in the South before, during, and after the Civil War, and the migration of many former slaves, led by such men as Benjamin Singleton and Henry Adams, to the West looking for a better life.

"Along the Perfume River lives an old woman who has never left her village, who has raised children and grandchildren, never having seen the other side of the river. A nightclub owner from Vietnam travels the world, hobnobbing with international celebrities. A young man goes to college in America, only to return to Vietnam with made-up stories and forged photographs of himself with President Clinton. And another grows up both an American teenager...

"A powerful illustrated history of the Great Migration and its sweeping impact on Black and American culture, from Reconstruction to the rise of hip hop. Over the course of six decades, an unprecedented wave of Black Americans left the South and spread across the nation in search of a better life--a migration that sparked stunning demographic and cultural changes in twentieth-century America. Through gripping and accessible historical narrative paired...

"The First Migrants explores the narrative histories of Black homesteaders in the Great Plains and the larger themes which characterize their shared experiences"--