The Soul of Black People

Mattie Mattie

PLS390

The Promise Land Review

The Author

Nicholas Lemann was born and raised in New Orleans . He was born several months after the “Brown versus Board of Education” decision. Lemann gives a quick snap shot of his upbringing in a two and a half YouTube video. In it he tells how he comes from a small nuclear family but had a large extended family He shares that his family has deep roots in New Orleans since 1836. His grandfather started a law firm in which his father and uncle worked. His father is 82 and has never moved farther than a one mile radius of where he was born. Lemann states when he was born, his life was already planned that he would be a lawyer per his family traditions. He has written magazine articles since the age of 17. A Harvard college graduate, Lemann graduated magna cum laude in 1976. Lemann married twice, lived near New York City with his wife, Dominique Browing and their two sons when he wrote “The Promised Land.” They divorced and he later married Judith Anne Shulevitz in 1999. They have a son and daughter.

The Book

“The Promised Land the Great Black Migration and How It Changed America,” is a National Best Seller written in 1991. It was published in the Untied States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto . The books tell the story of African Americans share cropper living in Clarksdale Mississippi and moving North to a better place, mainly Chicago . Their main character Ruby Haynes, Uless Carter and George Hicks in the book explains how the migration was a tremendous piece of history in America society effecting government and politics. An example is the power of the Black votes. After the civil war almost all blacks were considers Republicans. That began to change when the Great Depression and President Roosevelt’s program to help the disadvantage and minority communities find work. “The National Youth...