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The Making of African America: The Four Great Migrations
An award-winning historian's sweeping new interpretation of the African American experience.
In this masterful account, Ira Berlin, one of the nation's most distinguished historians, offers a revolutionary-and sure to be controversial-new view of African American history. In The Making of African America , Berlin challenges the traditional presentation of a linear, progressive history from slavery to freedom. Instead, he puts forth the idea that four great migrations, between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries, lie at the heart of black American culture and its development. With an engrossing, accessible narrative, Berlin traces the transit from Africa to America, Virginia to Alabama, Biloxi to Chicago, Lagos to the Bronx, and in the process finds the essence of black American life.
In this masterful account, Ira Berlin, one of the nation's most distinguished historians, offers a revolutionary-and sure to be controversial-new view of African American history. In The Making of African America , Berlin challenges the traditional presentation of a linear, progressive history from slavery to freedom. Instead, he puts forth the idea that four great migrations, between the seventeenth and twenty-first centuries, lie at the heart of black American culture and its development. With an engrossing, accessible narrative, Berlin traces the transit from Africa to America, Virginia to Alabama, Biloxi to Chicago, Lagos to the Bronx, and in the process finds the essence of black American life.
320 pages, Paperback
First published December 22, 2009
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663 people want to read
About the author
Ira Berlin
32 books52 followersA historian of American slavery, Ira Berlin earned his BA in chemistry, and an MA and Ph.D. in history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago Circle and Federal City College in Washington, DC before moving to the University of Maryland in 1974, where he was Distinguished University Professor of History. A former president of the Organization of American Historians, Berlin was the founding editor of the Freedmen and Southern Society Project, which he directed until 1991.
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February 28, 2025
African American History In Counterpoint
Students of African American history have often seen it as linear in character, beginning in slavery and moving broadly forward to emancipation and freedom. In his new book, "The Making of African America: the Four Great Migrations", Ira Berlin modifies and deepens the linear view. Berlin describes African American history as showing a "contrapuntal interplay of movement and place." He also emphasizes the active role of African Americans in creating their own identities and characters rather than in simply responding passively to the many hardships and indignities they were forced to endure. Berlin is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. He has written extensively on African American history, with a focus on the 200 years of slavery.
Berlin's metaphor of a "contrapuntal" history is particularly telling because he emphasizes throughout the importance of music to the character of African American life. From the call and response patterns brought from Africa to the shouts and spirituals of the slaves, and through gospel, rock, jazz, and rap, African Americans have expressed themselves through music and enriched American life. Berlin is especially interested in the blues as a source of African American expression. In addition to music, Berlin sees family and religion as defining features of African American life over the centuries.
The book is organized around what Berlin describes as the Four Great Migrations in African American life and the intervening periods of relative stasis. The movements and the stasis create the counterpoint. Thus, the first migration involved the infamous Middle Passage in which members of many different peoples in Africa were captured and crossed the Atlantic in foul and unspeakable ships to become slaves. Ultimately, they lost their tribal identities to become African Americans. Upon reaching the eastern part of the United States, the new African Americans were able to learn a new language, adjust to a new place, and form family ties. Some of them won freedom at an early stage and some migrated elsewhere. This was the first period of stasis.
The second migration involves what Berlin calls the "Passage to the Interior". With the expansion of the United States, slave traders carried off many African Americans to the South and West uprooting families and the lives slaves had made for themselves in the East. After the Civil War, a period of stasis set in as African Americans were rooted to the land in the South and attempted to make lives for themselves as farmers or sharecroppers. There was little movement northward through the end of the Nineteenth Century.
The third migration was the "Great Migration" of the 20th Century during which African Americans reinvented themselves. Ultimately place changed. African Americans identified themselves as the most urban group in America rather than as overwhelmingly rural as had been the case in the 19th Century. Escaping farming, the boll weevil, and Jim Crow, African Americans were fought against the different forms of racial discrimination they faced in the North The aftermath of the migration was the formation of a new form of city life.
The final migration in Berlin's journey began in 1965 with the passage of both the Civil Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act. As a result of the latter law, blacks from both Africa and from the Caribbean immigrated to the United States in numbers that had not been seen since the early 19th Century. The African Americans descended from those who endured the Middle Passage faced an uneasy relationship with the newcomers. At the outset of the book, Berlin recounts a meeting in which a recent Ethiopian immigrant in 2004 asked at a community meeting "am I not African American" and received a chorus of a response "no, no, no, not you."
African American life had to resolve itself again, this time between the individuals whose ancestors have lived in the United States for many years and the newcomers. The tension, and steps towards its resolution were epitomized in the election of Barack Obama to the presidency and the overwhelming support he ultimately received from the black community. President Obama, of course, is not a descendant of individuals who were subject to the Middle Passage or to American slavery.
With empathy and insight, Berlin's book offers an excellent overview of the history of African American life. It will enrich the reader's understanding of our nation's history and ideals.
Robin Friedman
Students of African American history have often seen it as linear in character, beginning in slavery and moving broadly forward to emancipation and freedom. In his new book, "The Making of African America: the Four Great Migrations", Ira Berlin modifies and deepens the linear view. Berlin describes African American history as showing a "contrapuntal interplay of movement and place." He also emphasizes the active role of African Americans in creating their own identities and characters rather than in simply responding passively to the many hardships and indignities they were forced to endure. Berlin is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland. He has written extensively on African American history, with a focus on the 200 years of slavery.
Berlin's metaphor of a "contrapuntal" history is particularly telling because he emphasizes throughout the importance of music to the character of African American life. From the call and response patterns brought from Africa to the shouts and spirituals of the slaves, and through gospel, rock, jazz, and rap, African Americans have expressed themselves through music and enriched American life. Berlin is especially interested in the blues as a source of African American expression. In addition to music, Berlin sees family and religion as defining features of African American life over the centuries.
The book is organized around what Berlin describes as the Four Great Migrations in African American life and the intervening periods of relative stasis. The movements and the stasis create the counterpoint. Thus, the first migration involved the infamous Middle Passage in which members of many different peoples in Africa were captured and crossed the Atlantic in foul and unspeakable ships to become slaves. Ultimately, they lost their tribal identities to become African Americans. Upon reaching the eastern part of the United States, the new African Americans were able to learn a new language, adjust to a new place, and form family ties. Some of them won freedom at an early stage and some migrated elsewhere. This was the first period of stasis.
The second migration involves what Berlin calls the "Passage to the Interior". With the expansion of the United States, slave traders carried off many African Americans to the South and West uprooting families and the lives slaves had made for themselves in the East. After the Civil War, a period of stasis set in as African Americans were rooted to the land in the South and attempted to make lives for themselves as farmers or sharecroppers. There was little movement northward through the end of the Nineteenth Century.
The third migration was the "Great Migration" of the 20th Century during which African Americans reinvented themselves. Ultimately place changed. African Americans identified themselves as the most urban group in America rather than as overwhelmingly rural as had been the case in the 19th Century. Escaping farming, the boll weevil, and Jim Crow, African Americans were fought against the different forms of racial discrimination they faced in the North The aftermath of the migration was the formation of a new form of city life.
The final migration in Berlin's journey began in 1965 with the passage of both the Civil Rights Act and the Immigration and Nationality Act. As a result of the latter law, blacks from both Africa and from the Caribbean immigrated to the United States in numbers that had not been seen since the early 19th Century. The African Americans descended from those who endured the Middle Passage faced an uneasy relationship with the newcomers. At the outset of the book, Berlin recounts a meeting in which a recent Ethiopian immigrant in 2004 asked at a community meeting "am I not African American" and received a chorus of a response "no, no, no, not you."
African American life had to resolve itself again, this time between the individuals whose ancestors have lived in the United States for many years and the newcomers. The tension, and steps towards its resolution were epitomized in the election of Barack Obama to the presidency and the overwhelming support he ultimately received from the black community. President Obama, of course, is not a descendant of individuals who were subject to the Middle Passage or to American slavery.
With empathy and insight, Berlin's book offers an excellent overview of the history of African American life. It will enrich the reader's understanding of our nation's history and ideals.
Robin Friedman
March 26, 2012
The first chapter suffered from abstract-itus but the book got considerably better when Berlin moved from theorizing to describing the different migrations and what they were like for the people who made them--willingly and unwillingly. Two of the migrations I was familiar with as would be many people with a general knowledge of American history--the middle passage from Africa and the flight from the south to the north. The second of the migrations, what Berlin calls the "2nd middle passage" was a surprise to me. I hadn't known that the slaves that populated the southern plantations were mainly taken from the Atlantic states rather than brought in from Africa. As the slave economy moved inland, so were the slaves often uprooted, torn from their families and shifted to the new plantations. This is why the threat of being "sold down-river" became more effective than the whip because the slaves had seen it happen to others. The fourth migration is that of immigrants from Africa, or of African descent, after the end of slavery. I was amazed to learn that these migrants have reached a near majority in NY. He discusses the tensions between the two--the American-born African Americans and the "newcomers."
August 25, 2013
Berlin tells an old story in a new way. Building on the concept of generational change that is seen in his other works of synthesis (Generations of Captivity, etc.), Berlin examines Black identity formation across the centuries in the United States. The last chapter is particularly interesting because it accounts for changes in Black life since 1965. While most historians see that year as the capstone of the civil rights era, Berlin demonstrates that immigration reforms passed in that year have had a pronounced impact on African American identity and culture. Most of the information will not be new for scholars and specialists, but this is a very readable book - would be a great texts for general African American History courses. I'll be updating and revising my lecture notes a lot after reading this.
October 28, 2018
This is a remarkable book that pushes us to reframe our conceptions of Blackness and Black History in the US. Although I believe the epilogue and concluding focus on Barack Obama to be very forced (though not unique for the book's time of publication), I think this work serves as an important intervention in American racial history.
December 12, 2011
Excellent Read. This book succinctly takes you through the painful journey that African Americans endured for centuries. It is an accurate account of what happened during the era of slavery, as well as how those experiences have affected the lives of Black people today.
February 2, 2017
I have owned Many Thousands Gone for at least five years. I have read the introduction multiple times, but it is a dense and difficult book to approach without a specialist's interest. I picked up this book from my school's library to assist me in writing a lecture about the Atlantic Slave Trade, and decided to stick around for the whole thing.
Berlin is a wonderful writer. In introductory chapters and paragraphs, his words take flight into theoretical and emotional heights that I just love. I've seen this theorizing and philosophizing marked out as a flaw in this and his other works, but it was when it began to fade around the third chapter that my interest waned.
The first 125 pages focus on The Atlantic slave trade and the history of slavery in the British American Colonies. It is clear, even without prior knowledge of Berlin's work, that this is his area of expertise. This book exists in that space reserved for established historians who get an idea one day, and through a handful of discussions or maybe a new lecture, turn it into a book. It is footnoted somewhat lightly, and relies much more on secondary sources than something monumental like Many Thousands Gone. This isn't intended as a slight to the book, but it's a particular type of monograph that not everyone wants to read.
The main thesis of the book re-imagining African American history in the largest sense as a series of migrations that hinge on the dueling ideas of place and movement, or roots and routes as Berlin cleverly calls them, is really interesting and engaging. But the Four Migrations that he describes (Middle Passage, Coastal South to Deep South, South to North, and the Influx of immigrants of African Descent) are, with the exception of the final one, well tread territory. It is a bit disappointing then that the fourth migration is discussed almost as an afterthought and an extended introductory note to the epilogue about Barack Obama's career.
After the first half of the book, each chapter takes on a certain amount of summary and feeling of introduction, which if you have read much about The Great Migration can make the proceedings a bit tedious. I can envision this book being a great introductory or set text for a survey course of African American history, but if you have The Warmth of Other Suns on your bookshelf, you are not going to get a lot of new ideas from Berlin's discussion.
Overall, this book has a great central concept that is discussed in broad terms by a master historian. If you have an interest in African American history read it, if you have done lots of background reading in the topic, read the intro, epilogue, and the chapter about the migration you know the least about. Recommended.
Berlin is a wonderful writer. In introductory chapters and paragraphs, his words take flight into theoretical and emotional heights that I just love. I've seen this theorizing and philosophizing marked out as a flaw in this and his other works, but it was when it began to fade around the third chapter that my interest waned.
The first 125 pages focus on The Atlantic slave trade and the history of slavery in the British American Colonies. It is clear, even without prior knowledge of Berlin's work, that this is his area of expertise. This book exists in that space reserved for established historians who get an idea one day, and through a handful of discussions or maybe a new lecture, turn it into a book. It is footnoted somewhat lightly, and relies much more on secondary sources than something monumental like Many Thousands Gone. This isn't intended as a slight to the book, but it's a particular type of monograph that not everyone wants to read.
The main thesis of the book re-imagining African American history in the largest sense as a series of migrations that hinge on the dueling ideas of place and movement, or roots and routes as Berlin cleverly calls them, is really interesting and engaging. But the Four Migrations that he describes (Middle Passage, Coastal South to Deep South, South to North, and the Influx of immigrants of African Descent) are, with the exception of the final one, well tread territory. It is a bit disappointing then that the fourth migration is discussed almost as an afterthought and an extended introductory note to the epilogue about Barack Obama's career.
After the first half of the book, each chapter takes on a certain amount of summary and feeling of introduction, which if you have read much about The Great Migration can make the proceedings a bit tedious. I can envision this book being a great introductory or set text for a survey course of African American history, but if you have The Warmth of Other Suns on your bookshelf, you are not going to get a lot of new ideas from Berlin's discussion.
Overall, this book has a great central concept that is discussed in broad terms by a master historian. If you have an interest in African American history read it, if you have done lots of background reading in the topic, read the intro, epilogue, and the chapter about the migration you know the least about. Recommended.
January 25, 2010
Authoritative, incisive and current, if not overly original. Berlin recounts the history of Africans and their arrival and assimilation into America with sympathy, respect and tact. His strength is synthesis, not originality, however. Much of this material is common knowledge, a minor expounding of information that most of us have already learned in high school, the cursory analysis of Barack Obama's election notwithstanding. Not by any means a groundbreaking book, but majoring in the basics is not a bad thing, and it does that well.
August 2, 2018
Wonderful. Important book to help understand current issues.
Tracks African American history regarding movement and lives. Also reflects on most recent migrations of Africans to the U.S., some history of music and includes a brief reflection on the appearance of Barack Obama in American history. Just a fantastic guide. Well written and excellent scholarship from a highly regarded historian.
Tracks African American history regarding movement and lives. Also reflects on most recent migrations of Africans to the U.S., some history of music and includes a brief reflection on the appearance of Barack Obama in American history. Just a fantastic guide. Well written and excellent scholarship from a highly regarded historian.
January 6, 2022
4.5 rounded up
I first got this to see if it would be a good fit for my dual credit high schoolers to read both in tandem with the textbook and for a required book review. It would be perfect for that! It is largely a synthesis, but not one I can find all together like this elsewhere. It also does a great job of raising questions of place and identity and how communities are formed and reformed.
Unlike some reviewers, I thought the segway into President Obama made perfect sense. Unfortunately, it also very much dates the book. Also, that last chapter could have been extended, except we're in the middle of living it. I would have also appreciated some breaking up of the chapters. There's no need for 50 page chunks as single chapters. Little things that would make it more approachable.
I first got this to see if it would be a good fit for my dual credit high schoolers to read both in tandem with the textbook and for a required book review. It would be perfect for that! It is largely a synthesis, but not one I can find all together like this elsewhere. It also does a great job of raising questions of place and identity and how communities are formed and reformed.
Unlike some reviewers, I thought the segway into President Obama made perfect sense. Unfortunately, it also very much dates the book. Also, that last chapter could have been extended, except we're in the middle of living it. I would have also appreciated some breaking up of the chapters. There's no need for 50 page chunks as single chapters. Little things that would make it more approachable.
May 2, 2010
An insightful look at the history of immigration and migration people of African descent in the United States. Beginning from forced immigration during the slave trade, this book tracks the later movement of slaves from the Eastern Seaboard to the interior of the South, the subsequent migration of former slaves and their descendants to urban centers throughout the country, and now the immigration of asylees and other nationals from Africa and the Caribbean to the US in the late 20th and early 21st century. This book tracks undercurrents in the culture of black Americans that are the result of these histories while seeking to understand the identities (self imposed and not) of black Americans who are considered African Americans (with direct lineage to slaves) and American Africans (with direct lineage to the African continent without slave lineage) and what those labels mean within each community.
Although the author readily repeats himself throughout the book, this was an great read. The book read to me as a celebration of the unique cultures born from the tragic history perpetrated upon blacks in America while being sure the hardships of past generations are not forgotten. If you have an interest in racial relationships in America, but are not well read on the subject, this is a great read for you to better understand the history (and present) of being black in America.
Although the author readily repeats himself throughout the book, this was an great read. The book read to me as a celebration of the unique cultures born from the tragic history perpetrated upon blacks in America while being sure the hardships of past generations are not forgotten. If you have an interest in racial relationships in America, but are not well read on the subject, this is a great read for you to better understand the history (and present) of being black in America.
July 16, 2010
The author traces four foundational periods in African-American history: arrival on slave ships, migration to the Mississippi Delta in the first half of the 19th century, migration north in the 20th century, and the arrival of immigrants from Africa in the last half of the 20th century. The book was very informative, but I felt that the lack of anecdotes made it somewhat dry. A good introduction for someone who is looking to learn more about the subject.
February 21, 2015
All though the subject of slavery is not an easy talking topic, the truth must be told. This book is educational and deeply emotional about the tradic and terrible initial enslavement of african people. It talks about how despite inhuman bondage, physical and psychological scarring, and unsettling events emerged a race of people. The saga of the black men and women who endured captivity and without anything made something out of nothing.
March 1, 2017
I understand that this piece is mostly about the history, facts, what actually happened or is still happening. Style: academic. Yet, I think, the form absolutely kills the content. Reading statistics in words is not very convenient, many extensive passages could be covered in a much readable and transparent table or graph. Also constant phrase repetitions get less and less exciting. This took me a while and I won't be reading this again just yet.
July 15, 2013
a little dry when expounding historical statistics, but overall a good explanation of the African american cultural identity, especially insightful with the explanations of how music evolved alongside the major cultural migrations. this was actually a big part of the book that surprised me, perhaps the author would consider adding this concept to the books title.
February 20, 2015
The story gave me a better understanding of the "routes and roots" that African Americans have used and planted over the last four hundred years. It was a great book to read during Black History Month giving me a new perspective on their history and tradition.
May 21, 2010
A detailed look at a microcosm of History; that of slavery in North America. Berlin's work covers the "peculiar institution" from the 17th through the 21th Century.
April 6, 2010
Excellent overview of African American History.
May 11, 2010
A readable, approachable history of the four great migrations, with much to think about with respect to the influence of African immigrants on American and African American culture.
June 15, 2013
fine overview, not much news
January 16, 2018
Solid but really down to basics
August 17, 2020
There are occasions where more is less when it comes to a book and that is definitely the case here. Admittedly, the subject of African-American migrations is not a subject I am personally all that familiar with but there is nothing about the subject that is difficult to understand based on my general interest in migration and immigration studies as a whole. This book could have done a great job with that material and it would have been an easy book to appreciate. Unfortunately, on top of that worthy task the author also thought it was worthwhile to promote Obama and his political career, which made this book explicitly political and therefore less praiseworthy given its political bias. If the book does have interesting things to say about the tensions among blacks as far as who counts as black or as black enough, the author's self-evident desire to connect herself with contemporary black political movements makes this book impossible to recommend and the author's rhetoric throughout smacks of excessive whining and an inability to accept personal responsibility, though she does not shrewdly that African immigrants typically succeed because they have better work ethic and fewer mistaken assumptions about imaginary structural racism, so this book clearly has some things going for it, if only accidentally.
This book is about 240 pages or so long and it is divided into five generally large chapters. The book begins with a prologue and then an introductory chapter that discusses the author's interest in the themes of movement and place in the African American past (1). After that the author discusses the trauma of the Transatlantic passage and what that meant to the hundreds of thousands of blacks (among ten million or so) who were shipped to the Atlantic coast of the United States (2). This is followed by a look at the internal slave trade from areas where declining soil productivity led to the desire to ship out the most productive workers to new land in the South and West (3) that had been opened up to plantation agriculture. After that the author talks about the passage to the North in the so-called "Great Migration" in the late 1800's and early 1900's that brought rural Southern blacks into urban areas, especially in the North and West (4). Finally, the author talks about the global passages that have brought blacks from other countries into the United States and sought to redefine again what it meant to be black (5), after which the book ends with an epilogue about Obama, acknowledgements, notes, and an index.
What one gains from this book, when one strips away the excessive nature of the author's anti-white rhetoric and her whiny identity politics, which is unfortunately all too heavy in this sort of work, is an understanding of the complexities of how black people see themselves as being shaped by various experiences of migration that combine a look at place and movement and the interaction between the two that led first to blacks being sold by their neighbors in Africa to whites across the Middle Passage, then shipped from failing plantations on the Atlantic seaboard to newer plantations in the Deep South, then voluntarily moved from rural poverty to urban poverty, and then often moved from the Caribbean and Africa to America in search of better opportunity, all the while wrestling with the question of what it means to be black, and how are blacks to be seen by white Americans, regardless of their personal histories. The author and I obviously are in very different positions as to how these questions are to be judged, but all the same it is certainly interesting to ponder how it is that identity is shaped by migration and how having a sense of place does not always mean wanting to be rooted to it without the ability to leave uncomfortable and unpleasant memories behind.
This book is about 240 pages or so long and it is divided into five generally large chapters. The book begins with a prologue and then an introductory chapter that discusses the author's interest in the themes of movement and place in the African American past (1). After that the author discusses the trauma of the Transatlantic passage and what that meant to the hundreds of thousands of blacks (among ten million or so) who were shipped to the Atlantic coast of the United States (2). This is followed by a look at the internal slave trade from areas where declining soil productivity led to the desire to ship out the most productive workers to new land in the South and West (3) that had been opened up to plantation agriculture. After that the author talks about the passage to the North in the so-called "Great Migration" in the late 1800's and early 1900's that brought rural Southern blacks into urban areas, especially in the North and West (4). Finally, the author talks about the global passages that have brought blacks from other countries into the United States and sought to redefine again what it meant to be black (5), after which the book ends with an epilogue about Obama, acknowledgements, notes, and an index.
What one gains from this book, when one strips away the excessive nature of the author's anti-white rhetoric and her whiny identity politics, which is unfortunately all too heavy in this sort of work, is an understanding of the complexities of how black people see themselves as being shaped by various experiences of migration that combine a look at place and movement and the interaction between the two that led first to blacks being sold by their neighbors in Africa to whites across the Middle Passage, then shipped from failing plantations on the Atlantic seaboard to newer plantations in the Deep South, then voluntarily moved from rural poverty to urban poverty, and then often moved from the Caribbean and Africa to America in search of better opportunity, all the while wrestling with the question of what it means to be black, and how are blacks to be seen by white Americans, regardless of their personal histories. The author and I obviously are in very different positions as to how these questions are to be judged, but all the same it is certainly interesting to ponder how it is that identity is shaped by migration and how having a sense of place does not always mean wanting to be rooted to it without the ability to leave uncomfortable and unpleasant memories behind.
March 29, 2022
At the risk of betraying my own ignorance, I feel this book is an example of the application critical race theory to the telling of historical events, ie the migrations, about which I knew little ( despite two years of American history in high school, despite my undergrad history major and my graduate education in Social Work -- therein lies a story, don't you think ). Don't be afraid to understand this much more about the land in which we live. And see for yourself the extensive sourcing for this material.
The First Migration is the passage of kidnapped Africans to our colonies. Likely we all know that this occurred, but the dimensions (carefully documented with primary sources with which few of us are acquainted such as bills of lading, auction records, writing from the times direct observers) of this enterprise will astound most. The Second Migration occurs when the enslaved are moved from coastal colonies into the newly settled interior areas. The movement of enslaved laborers coincides with the establishment of the so-called plantation system, which may be more truly factory farming. Cotton replaced tobacco as the south's chief product, in fact the entire southern civilization is built on cotton such that there is no escape for anyone, enslavers or the enslaved, who are worked mercilessly as machines for agricultural production.
While the first migrations are imposed upon the enslaved, the third is more a product of choice; for when the war ends, white violence and degradation of the black population continues with baleful consequences. Northern cities offer opportunities not found in the south thereby attracting African Americans with promise of new life, however it came to pass in practice.
The fourth migration pertains to black and brown people who come to the United States from across. the globe. The new migrants present unanticipated needs for adjustment. While African Americans share commonalities of experience, few newmigrants present with histories that may not be common with one another, much less common in the communities to which they come.
While the author briefly recapitulates histories white men have told, his chief focus pertains to how African American communities responded to the environments they faced. From disparate communities in Africa, men, women and children found themselves subsumed in a new, singular identity -- African -- as defined by whites. However the author explores how, particularly as pertains to the great migrations, African Americans from their capture through the present day created communities of strength. The book concerns itself with the establishment of an identity forged by the creative confrontation with injustice and disparagement.
Looking over this review, I can say that I have in some respects cheated the author of his insights, and revealed a kind of half comprehension of these concepts. I don't usually re-read books, but I know I will return to this one for the better appreciation of this infrequently told story of African American experience.
The First Migration is the passage of kidnapped Africans to our colonies. Likely we all know that this occurred, but the dimensions (carefully documented with primary sources with which few of us are acquainted such as bills of lading, auction records, writing from the times direct observers) of this enterprise will astound most. The Second Migration occurs when the enslaved are moved from coastal colonies into the newly settled interior areas. The movement of enslaved laborers coincides with the establishment of the so-called plantation system, which may be more truly factory farming. Cotton replaced tobacco as the south's chief product, in fact the entire southern civilization is built on cotton such that there is no escape for anyone, enslavers or the enslaved, who are worked mercilessly as machines for agricultural production.
While the first migrations are imposed upon the enslaved, the third is more a product of choice; for when the war ends, white violence and degradation of the black population continues with baleful consequences. Northern cities offer opportunities not found in the south thereby attracting African Americans with promise of new life, however it came to pass in practice.
The fourth migration pertains to black and brown people who come to the United States from across. the globe. The new migrants present unanticipated needs for adjustment. While African Americans share commonalities of experience, few newmigrants present with histories that may not be common with one another, much less common in the communities to which they come.
While the author briefly recapitulates histories white men have told, his chief focus pertains to how African American communities responded to the environments they faced. From disparate communities in Africa, men, women and children found themselves subsumed in a new, singular identity -- African -- as defined by whites. However the author explores how, particularly as pertains to the great migrations, African Americans from their capture through the present day created communities of strength. The book concerns itself with the establishment of an identity forged by the creative confrontation with injustice and disparagement.
Looking over this review, I can say that I have in some respects cheated the author of his insights, and revealed a kind of half comprehension of these concepts. I don't usually re-read books, but I know I will return to this one for the better appreciation of this infrequently told story of African American experience.
April 22, 2023
Amazing book. Please read Robin Friedman's review to know more about the narrative of the book. I just think the language "sings" in this book. I could only get through about 20 pages a day, dye to re-reading so many passages again.
I also was interested more in the Great Migration and knew next to nothing about the immigration of more recent Africans and how the interaction with African Americans who descend from slaves. This book was very informative on both of those accounts.
Overall it was a very valuable book for me to read.
I also was interested more in the Great Migration and knew next to nothing about the immigration of more recent Africans and how the interaction with African Americans who descend from slaves. This book was very informative on both of those accounts.
Overall it was a very valuable book for me to read.
February 6, 2021
This sweeping book raises great and challenging questions about movement and place in the centuries of African American life. It revolves around what Berlin calls the four great migrations: the slave trade, the internal slave trade of the early 19th c., the great migration of 1910-1970, and post-1965 African diasporic immigration. It's an exciting project, to connect the recent African and Caribbean immigration to the larger story of migration in the African American experience. In the end the book raises more questions than it answers, and the book struggles a bit to place 20th century voluntary im/migration in the same framework as enslavement. But along the way, Berlin's powerful and poetic writing makes this an essential and fascinating read.
September 18, 2020
Mr. Berlin truly was one of the great historians of American slavery. This book is about, as it indicates, the 4 migrations of blacks to the North American continent and within it. It has a lot of information that I was not aware of, and touches upon one of my favorite subjects: the influence of music in black culture right up into the 21st century.
January 29, 2021
reading this really showed just how heavily my undergrad and grad professors rely on the great Berlin's scholarly work for their classes. feeling so sad that I missed him by a matter of months at UMD.
December 11, 2025
Much of this book is basically the author free associating on abstract topics like home, movement, identity. You start to yearn for some solid, concrete information. Reading this book is like flying through fog.
September 10, 2019
Interesting but can be repetitive
December 31, 2022
Excellent analysis and lessons. Focusing on how Africans bettered this country is necessary.
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February 5, 2025im. not sure if/when ill come back to this but im not reading a white man talk about african american history during bhm. im too tired.
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