Sacred Ground
The Chicago Streets of Timuel Black
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- $32.99
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- $32.99
Publisher Description
Timuel Black is an acclaimed historian, activist, and storyteller. Sacred Ground: The Chicago Streets of Timuel Black chronicles the life and times of this Chicago legend.
Sacred Ground opens in 1919, during the summer of the Chicago race riot, when infant Black and his family arrive in Chicago from Birmingham, Alabama, as part of the first Great Migration. He recounts in vivid detail his childhood and education in the Black Metropolis of Bronzeville and South Side neighborhoods that make up his “sacred ground.”
Revealing a priceless trove of experiences, memories, ideas, and opinions, Black describes how it felt to belong to this place, even when stationed in Europe during World War II. He relates how African American soldiers experienced challenges and conflicts during the war, illuminating how these struggles foreshadowed the civil rights movement. A labor organizer, educator, and activist, Black captures fascinating anecdotes and vignettes of meeting with famous figures of the times, such as Duke Ellington and Martin Luther King Jr., but also with unheralded people whose lives convey lessons about striving, uplift, and personal integrity.
Rounding out this memoir, Black reflects on the legacy of his friend and mentee, Barack Obama, as well as on his public works and enduring relationships with students, community workers, and some very influential figures in Chicago and the world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this inspiring, affecting memoir, Black an organizer, historian, and educator chronicles his experiences in and beyond Chicago's historic and predominantly black Bronzeville neighborhood. The newborn Black and his family moved there during the Great Migration, in 1919. He looks back fondly at his Depression-era childhood surrounded by role models, educational opportunities, and excellence in music, sports, business, and community organizing. Serving overseas during WWII, where he faced discrimination and mistreatment, he encountered his turning point: participating in the liberation of Buchenwald, which prompted his commitment to spend his life "working for peace and justice." After graduate school, Black worked in Chicago high schools and city colleges, mentoring black students and leading the local chapter of the American Federation of Teachers as it pushed against discrimination in schools, and became a community organizer, coordinating Chicago's participants in the March on Washington and organizing to elect Harold Washington, the city's first black mayor. Black's writing is straightforward and conversational, and he is a natural storyteller. Through his own memories, he aims to provide a multidimensional sense of black life in Chicago. He writes, "First-person story-telling seems to me the most accessible, plain-spoken, and true way to paint that picture" of what a place and its people have meant. "For me, and I hope for you, oral history is the real deal." This memoir is.)
