Abiding Courage : African American Migrant Women and the East Bay Community

Between 1940 and 1945, thousands of African Americans migrated from the South to the East Bay Area of northern California in search of the social and economic mobility that was associated with the region's expanding defense industry and its reputation for greater racial tolerance. Drawing on fifty oral interviews with migrants as well as on archival and other written records, Abiding Courage examines the experiences of the African American women who migrated west and built communities there. Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo vividly shows how women made the transition from southern domestic and field work to jobs in an industrial, wartime economy. At the same time, they were struggling to keep their families together, establishing new households, and creating community-sustaining networks and institutions. While white women shouldered the double burden of wage labor and housework, black women faced even greater challenges: finding houses and schools, locating churches and medical services, and contending with racism. By focusing on women, Lemke-Santangelo provides new perspectives on where and how social change takes place and how community is established and maintained. 1. It Was Just Like Living In Two Worlds: Growing Up In The Jim Crow South, 1910-1940 -- 2. To Make The Two Worlds One: Migration From The South To The San Francisco East Bay Area -- 3. I Never Thought I'd Have To Create All That: Making New Homes In The East Bay Area -- 4. I Always Desired Independence, Never Wealth: Migrant Women And Wage Labor -- 5. I Never Denied Where I Came From: Migrant Women And Their Cultural Work In The East Bay -- 6. If We Didn't Do It, It Just Wouldn't Get Done: Migrant Women And Collective Action In The East Bay. Gretchen Lemke-santangelo. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 201-210) And Index. Drawing on 50 oral interviews with migrants and on various written records, this text examines the experiences of African American women who migrated west and built communities there. Perspectives are given on how social change takes place and how community is established and maintained. 'This book is a masterful study that helps us understand the crucial nexus between race, gender, and culture in explaining both the World War II-era black migration and its profound consequences for the San Francisco Bay Area.'-Quintard Taylor, University of Oregon