Hometown Bound, or Not?
“Group of Florida migrants on their way to Cranberry, New Jersey, to pick potatoes. Near Shawboro, North Carolina.” July 1940. Photo by Jack Delano. Source: Library of Congress.
The place where a person grew up inevitably influences the person they turn out to be and the places they go. For many people, a great deal of thought goes into whether they decide to establish permanent roots in the place where they were reared, abandon their hometown altogether, or something in between. The HistoryMakers Digital Archive offers a veritable plethora of varied, fascinating perspectives about this subject. Here, I have compiled some of the most interesting clips from the Digital Archive about what Makers think about their own hometowns. I also corralled all of these clips into a playlist which you can access at this here link.
“Detroit, Michigan, skyline ca. 1929.” Source: Wikimedia Commons
Clarice Tinsely is a broadcast journalist whose hometown is Detroit, Michigan. Detroit, of course, is a city famous for its contributions to music, and this is what Tinsley spoke about, with great pride. Although she would eventually leave her hometown and establish a career in Texas, she clearly didn’t leave because of negative sentiments toward Detroit.
So, that's when I got my fix with Motown and The Supremes, and the way they looked and they sounded. And they were just so glamorous. And it was from my hometown. And it was like the world is loving Motown because of The Supremes; and The Temptations; Smokey Robinson and The Miracles; Martha and The Vandellas; Stevie Wonder--I mean, we just had so much talent. And it was like, yes, that's Detroit. And then we had the cars, you know, it was the automobile capitol of the world. And it was like, we had it going on. It was just, it was fantastic, lots of pride, lots of pride, and still a lot of pride from my hometown. [1]
A collage featuring some iconic figures from Motown. Source: KUVO Jazz
Paul Berry, like Clarice Tinsley, is a notable broadcast journalist from Detroit. However, unlike Tinsley, Berry demonstrates none such feelings toward his hometown that could be misconstrued as “pride.” In fact, he wanted to get out of town as soon as he could.
Everybody remembered when you started, okay. Everybody remembered when you--that's what you get. Well, I remember when. So there was some baggage attached to the beginning because the beginning is the beginning, and people don't forget that. So my trying to move up--that's, that was how I saw it, in terms of being more, and Detroit was rather like, as I said, the shoeshine boy becoming company president, you know. Nobody could forget when you were the shoeshine boy, which is not a bad thing. But it doesn't help you (laughter) in motivation, in upward motivation. … And so it wasn't difficult to leave. As a matter of fact, I was excited coming to the nation's capital. I had brought my grandmother [Annie Talley] here, and we were, we both loved the city. And so coming was, was--I was excited. And I was, rightfully so. And I'm still excited. First of all, I was getting out of Detroit that (laughter), the weather, and the clouds and the gloominess of my hometown. And secondly, I was, I thought, a lot closer to the power, you know, and I was gonna come in and do things and make changes and so on, so on and so forth. [2]
Maxine Waters, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri, talked about . As I was searching for suitable stories, she immediately caught my eye because I recognized her--she’s still a force to be reckoned with in Congress. Waters discusses her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri. Unlike Tinsley, Waters has a lot of nostalgia for her hometown and wishes she could spend more time there:
I didn't kind of discover myself after, you know, I left there. Or I didn't have experiences after I left there that I thought were so much greater or so much important. For me my life really began there, was developed there. That's kind of who I am. And whatever I do, it's related to that early life in St. Louis in that neighborhood in my schools. … I'm kind of in many ways an old-fashioned person. And I miss not being able to go to my neighborhood and have my neighborhood be the same. You know what I mean. I miss not being able to go to St. Louis and be with my friends that I developed at a very early age. I mean that sounds a little strange. But I'm-- I'm a person who for the most part didn't like the idea of moving out of our house. Who prefer spending time with people who shared that experience than with new people. [3]
“St. Louis, Missouri - Market Street.“July 3, 2015. Source: Wikimedia Commons
“Balloons are released at the annual Mary Meachum Freedom Crossing celebration in St. Louis.” Photo by Lynn DeLearie. March 5, 2016. It’s likely that Maxine Waters experienced community similar to that exhibited here when she was growing up in St. Louis.
John Fountain, a native of Chicago and a journalism professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, gives us our next clip. Like many others in the archive, including Clarice Tinsley, Fountain is a descendant of people who participated in the Great Migration. His thoughts on his hometown are an illuminating foil to Waters’s. Instead of seeing the hometown of his youth as something he wants to return to, Fountain talks about being alienated from it.
Growing up, I never felt like, I never felt like Chicago was my city. And it's strange. I felt like I knew the West Side and occasionally, I ventured to the South Side, but I didn't really know the South Side or feel a part of the South Side. And I certainly didn't feel a part of downtown and these big beautiful skyscrapers and whatever happened down there, it just, it--anytime I went there, happened to find myself downtown, it just felt like not my world. And as I got in high school, when I was a freshman, I got involved with "Project Upward Bound" at Northwestern University. And Project Upward Bound required that on Saturdays, every Saturday during the school year, that I travel from the West side to Evanston, Illinois. And I remember going to Evanston and particularly, we spent six weeks during the summer on the campus of Northwestern University, living in a dormitory. And it was my first exposure to college life or to a campus, to campus life. But much more, I saw clean streets and a kind of functionality that I didn't see any longer in my neighborhood. There was a sense of peace in the streets. I didn't have to look over my shoulder or wonder if I was going to get robbed or stuck up or robbed or mugged. And, and it felt, it was the first time I felt like, "Wow, there's another world." And feeling that for the first time let me know that I had to strive to do better to move forward. [4]
Marc Morial is a nonprofit executive who also served as the mayor of New Orleans. In this clip, he speaks about his decision to attend a majority white school, the University of Pennsylvania. Penn is considerably far from Morial’s hometown of New Orleans, Louisiana, and Morial wanted to get out—not because his hometown held him back, like Berry, but because he just needed to see what was out there:
I love Xavier University. It's a great institution. My choice had--I should say I'm pleased, I'm glad I did what I did because I got a chance to make relationships and explore far beyond the world I grew up in, to get to the Ivy League, to get to the University of Pennsylvania, to meet students from all over the world, to make friends with students who were not from the South, to learn that every place is not like your home town or your neighborhood. [5]
Black students of the University of Pennsylvania marching in the 1980s. Marc Morial graduated from Penn in 1980. Source: University of Pennsylvania
Lastly, let’s hear from Angela Davis, who has won acclaim for both her scholarship and left-wing activism. Davis grew up in the section of Birmingham, Alabama nicknamed “Dynamite Hill” because its inhabitants were so frequently the victims of racist terrorism. I’m drawn into the juxtaposition of these two things Davis experienced in her hometown, a childhood friend’s birthday party and a fire started because of racist hate. This encapsulates the love-hate relationship that many people can feel toward their hometowns.
… I do think I remember when I was very young we lived in the projects in Birmingham. There's this wonderful picture of a birthday party, a friend's birthday party, and I can remember the joy of playing with Margaret Burnham when I was two and she was three. I do remember very vividly, and I think I say in my autobiography, that this is the memory that etched itself on my brain from the earliest period of my childhood. And that has to do with the bombing of houses, of a house across the street from where my parents moved when we left the projects. That area of Birmingham came to be called 'Dynamite Hill', precisely because the Klu Klux Klan and other racist formations were determined to prevent black people from moving into that part of Birmingham. … But right across the street was the most contested part of that neighborhood, and every time a black person moved in or purchased a house across the street there was a bombing, there was a fire. So my earliest memory is the sound of this thunderous warlike end of the world, and I was, as I relate in my autobiography, I was actually washing my shoelaces preparing for church the next day and was alone in the bathroom when that happened, and having had no previous memory to allow that to make any kind of sense to me. It was thoroughly frightening. And I do remember that my mother was very comforting. And I didn't say this about her, but she always had a way of making us feel that everything was going to be all right. [6]
“Residents of Dynamite Hill gathered outside Shores' home after being bombed in 1963.” Source: ABC 33/40.
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, many factors can go into a person’s ultimate decision to remain in their hometown, leave their hometown and seek no further relationship with it, or leave and return as often as they can. This choice can be influenced by a number of factors, from nostalgia for childhood memories, fear of violence, or a desire to expand one’s horizons.
Sources:
Clarice Tinsley (The HistoryMakers A2014.082), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 6, 2014, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 2, Clarice Tinsley recalls the Motown Records scene in Detroit, Michigan.
Paul Berry (The HistoryMakers A2014.034), interviewed by Larry Crowe, January 29, 2014, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 7, story 1, Paul Berry recalls leaving Detroit, Michigan for Washington, D.C.
The Honorable Maxine Waters (The HistoryMakers A2001.076), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, July 29, 2001, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 1, Maxine Waters discusses her beginnings in St. Louis, Missouri.
John Wesley Fountain (The HistoryMakers A2012.114), interviewed by Larry Crowe, April 16, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 10, John Fountain talks about being exposed to the world outside of the neighborhood he grew up in.
The Honorable Marc H. Morial (The HistoryMakers A2006.045), interviewed by Shawn Wilson, May 2, 2006, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 3, tape 5, story 3, The Honorable Marc H. Morial explains his decision to attend a majority school.
Angela Davis (The HistoryMakers A2003.124), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, June 7, 2003, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 9, Angela Davis shares her earliest childhood memories.