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Historians Rutkoff and Scott (coauthors of New York Modern) "reject the
assertion that Africans lost their culture during the traumatic Middle
Passage," finding instead a rich articulation of African cultural
traditions in the cultural products of the African-American "Great
Migration of the twentieth century." The authors follow the movement of
African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North and reveal how
profoundly "the culture of African American migrants helped define
twentieth-century urban America." Different routes resulted in unique
cultural creations, observable in music (the guitar-based Delta blues,
Texas blues) and religion (most notably the growth of
Pentecostal-Holiness churches), all connected to aspects of West African
culture. The authors, while attentive to necessary statistics and
succinct in general historical background, transform the migrating
millions from an indistinguishable mass into distinct communities. As
Rutkoff and Scott take the reader to ChicagoÖs Bud Billiken Day or
HoustonÖs Juneteenth, August WilsonÖs Pittsburgh, or Walter MosleyÖs Los
Angeles, "the flashes of the West African spirit that black rural
southerners brought north" are rendered visible.

New York Modern: The Arts and the City (Paperback)

By William B. Scott, Peter M. Rutkoff

$32.00

ISBN-13: 9780801867934
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Johns Hopkins University Press, 8/2001

Other Editions of this Title

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Fly Away: The Great African American Cultural Migration (Hardcover)

By Peter M. Rutkoff, William B. Scott

$45.00

ISBN-13: 9780801894770
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Johns Hopkins University Press, 6/2010

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