Below is a summary of “Telling Our Stories: Local Residents Recall the Great Migration” — at American International College (AIC). Please add your own comments for those who attended.
We arrived right at 7:30PM and everything was set to begin. The Griswold Theater was a very large room making the turnout look very low. The audience was about 80 people with about 8 of us from the class. We took our seats on the dais and Gary Jones, Assistant Professor of History at AIC introduced me and I open things up by introducing our panel’s most senior member, the honorable Ruth B. Loving. She recalled knowing people from the South, particularly her brother-in-law, who moved here in the north seeking better opportunities than those available to him in the South. She also stressed the need for African Americans to exercise their right to vote as a safeguard against the kind of oppression that compelled millions of Afro-descendant people to move from states like Georgia to Massachusetts.
Dr. Kamal Hassan Ali, professor of Ethnic & Gender Studies at Westfield State University and alum of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst doctoral studies program in the Center for International Education, spoke next of his having been born in Springfield and how his grandfather arrived in the city fleeing persecution and injustice below the Mason-Dixon line.
Wayne Phaneuf, editor of The Springfield Republican, shared many interesting historical allusions, especially from the 19th century, as a foundation to a discussion of the 20th century Great Migration period. He noted that his publisher is offering his forthcoming book, The Struggle for Freedom: The History of African Americans in Western Massachusetts for $10 off the normal price. The book ships November 15th.
The venerable James “J.B.” Bradley was on the program but was unable to be on the panel. Click his name to go to a video of a great interview with by Janine Fondon.
Tony Bass and AIC taped the program. I will provide a link to it as soon as it is uploaded and I hear about it.