Midterm Prompt 2:
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney’s Migration Narrative In her book “Who Set You Flowin’?”, Farah Jasmine Griffin outlines the four major themes of Great Migration narratives. She claims, “The narrative is marked by four pivotal moments: (1) and event that propels the action northward, (2) a detailed representation of the initial confrontation with the urban landscape, (3) and illustration of the migrant’s attempt to negotiate that landscape and his or her resistance to the negative effects of urbanization, and (4) a vision of the possibilities or limitations of the Northern, Western or Midwestern city and the South.” She clarifies her thesis by writing that the themes do not necessarily come in this order, some migration narratives …show more content…
She was a spirited young girl who eventually married George, a sharecropper. Picking cotton in the field was hard for her, the work was tireless and the pay was substandard. One of her children died in an accident because it was impossible to her work and keep an eye on her kids. In her county, there were racist farm owners that do things like get drunk and shoot rifles near the black living quarters. All of this seemed reason enough to want to move and start over. However, her and her family never actually made the move to leave until their lives are threatened. One day a farmer’s turkeys went missing and her cousin was falsely accused of stealing them. After he is almost beaten to death, Ida Mae and George realize they have to leave the injustice in Mississippi, because they could be next in line. The violence in her hometown was the “action” that propelled her husband northward, with Ida Mae and their children in …show more content…
Ida Mae and her family migrated in 1937 and the Great Depression had taken its toll. Once they arrived at Irene’s apartment in Milwaukee, work was scarce and their living conditions were, in some ways, worse than they were in Mississippi. For a while, pregnant Ida Mae and her family of four lived, packed in Irene’s living room. George couldn’t find work and moving out of Irene’s apartment seemed almost impossible. Wilkerson writes, “With jobs scarce, the old tendency toward intolerance and exclusion reasserted itself...Company guards knew to stop colored job seekers at the gates [of factories].” Ida Mae became aware that the North wasn’t necessarily the “promised land” she had imagined. So, she began her “resistance to the negative effects of urbanization” and concocted a plan to have her baby back in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. Wilkerson writes, “She returned South for the express purpose of having the baby in the familiar hands of a midwife. She had heard that up North, doctors strapped women down when they went into labor, and she wasn’t going to submit to that kind of barbarity.” Ida Mae’s decision to have her baby back home showed her rejection of seemingly unempathetic Northern culture and how she still felt deeply connected to her Southern roots. Roots she was afraid her child wouldn’t share if she was born as a Northerner. When she returns North, she doesn't return to Milwaukee. Instead,
Ida Mae Brandon Gladney’s Migration Narrative In her book “Who Set You Flowin’?”, Farah Jasmine Griffin outlines the four major themes of Great Migration narratives. She claims, “The narrative is marked by four pivotal moments: (1) and event that propels the action northward, (2) a detailed representation of the initial confrontation with the urban landscape, (3) and illustration of the migrant’s attempt to negotiate that landscape and his or her resistance to the negative effects of urbanization, and (4) a vision of the possibilities or limitations of the Northern, Western or Midwestern city and the South.” She clarifies her thesis by writing that the themes do not necessarily come in this order, some migration narratives …show more content…
She was a spirited young girl who eventually married George, a sharecropper. Picking cotton in the field was hard for her, the work was tireless and the pay was substandard. One of her children died in an accident because it was impossible to her work and keep an eye on her kids. In her county, there were racist farm owners that do things like get drunk and shoot rifles near the black living quarters. All of this seemed reason enough to want to move and start over. However, her and her family never actually made the move to leave until their lives are threatened. One day a farmer’s turkeys went missing and her cousin was falsely accused of stealing them. After he is almost beaten to death, Ida Mae and George realize they have to leave the injustice in Mississippi, because they could be next in line. The violence in her hometown was the “action” that propelled her husband northward, with Ida Mae and their children in …show more content…
Ida Mae and her family migrated in 1937 and the Great Depression had taken its toll. Once they arrived at Irene’s apartment in Milwaukee, work was scarce and their living conditions were, in some ways, worse than they were in Mississippi. For a while, pregnant Ida Mae and her family of four lived, packed in Irene’s living room. George couldn’t find work and moving out of Irene’s apartment seemed almost impossible. Wilkerson writes, “With jobs scarce, the old tendency toward intolerance and exclusion reasserted itself...Company guards knew to stop colored job seekers at the gates [of factories].” Ida Mae became aware that the North wasn’t necessarily the “promised land” she had imagined. So, she began her “resistance to the negative effects of urbanization” and concocted a plan to have her baby back in Chickasaw County, Mississippi. Wilkerson writes, “She returned South for the express purpose of having the baby in the familiar hands of a midwife. She had heard that up North, doctors strapped women down when they went into labor, and she wasn’t going to submit to that kind of barbarity.” Ida Mae’s decision to have her baby back home showed her rejection of seemingly unempathetic Northern culture and how she still felt deeply connected to her Southern roots. Roots she was afraid her child wouldn’t share if she was born as a Northerner. When she returns North, she doesn't return to Milwaukee. Instead,