![]() LCR: I think what’s beautiful about the Black experience in terms of the Great Migration is, you know, James mentioned he’s from North Carolina, his family’s from North Carolina. So this was a way to sort of meet friends and meet new people who were also from the state. Which was a party for people who were from North Carolina. They all got really dressed up and got ready for the Carolina Ball. JR: So, this was an event that my mother and uncles went to, and it was a big event. LCR: Yeah, the clubs that were formed as a result. Events were planned around the fact that they were from other places. You know, so many people came and these sort of new communities were created where they maybe met someone from another county, from the same state. James Ransome: Sometimes we’ve had family conversations, and they just talk about the experience of coming to the North. And so I would say that the research that I did was supplemented by firsthand accounts of sitting and talking with family members and having their direct experiences, which certainly enriched, I think, both the text and the art. … I just began imagining what it would be like for a young person experiencing the Great Migration, both James and I - the children of parents who were part of that Great Migration. And as a writer who’s become increasingly interested in history, and certainly now in this age, in the truth of history and the ways in which there are moments where African-Americans have kind of been left out of different aspects of historical recounting, I wanted to be able to tell a story - seen through the eyes of a young girl at this particular, very important moment in America’s history of the Great Migration. When I started the project, I would say that honestly, it began with reading the book “The Warmth of Other Suns” by Isabel Wilkerson. Lesa Cline-Ransome: Well, it was really a variety of sources for me. Whoops! There was an error and we couldn't process your subscription.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |