Making Our Way Home

February 1, 2020
Focused on the years 1910 to 1979, during which six million Black Americans moved across the country in search of a better future, this is Imani's (Modern HERstory, 2018) primer on the Great Migration for people of all ages and cultural heritages. Beginning with Reconstruction and its failures, Imani introduces key people, events, and concepts with rectifying nods toward traditional historical narratives (the Migration, for example, was fueled more by domestic terrorism and famine than by opportunism; FDR's lauded New Deal and the 1944 G.I. Bill actually widened the wealth gap between Black and white America). Continuing through the Harlem Renaissance, world wars, and the civil rights movement, Imani closes this history with the anti-war and liberation movements of the 1960s and '70s, and the world-changing advent of hip-hop. Baker's pop-art style digital renderings of portraits, photographs, and objects are an eye-catching combination of modern and reverent. With a bibliography, index, and glossary for people, terms, and events, this is both an important corrective to whitewashed U.S. history and an excellent jumping-off point for further inquiry.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)