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Wandering in Strange Lands: A Daughter of the Great Migration Reclaims Her Roots by Morgan Jerkins
hledvina's review against another edition
5.0
A memoir that furthers the story of the great migration and southern diaspora in this country. This is the author’s investigation and research into black family history/ethnography, her family roots, descendants and ancestors. It is remarkable and a must read to understand about history and family lines, how they have been blended, obliterated, changed, destroyed or never formally recorded. It is a book about labels, geography, land loss, land stolen and the reckoning that has yet to come for the monumental losses of all native peoples. I also was unaware of the DNA testing controversies presented in this book but it makes so much sense after her explanation of the process.
marileecr's review against another edition
5.0
I learned so much in this book from Jerkins' geographical journey to understand her roots. Of course, US history is wrapped up in her history. I appreciated learning more about Black history in the Lowcountry of Georgia and South Carolina, Creole Louisiana, Oklahoma and Los Angeles. Once again, this book reveals how US policy made land ownership almost impossible for Black people and how segregation continues to be problematic. Her narrative woven through these important historical accounts was engaging. I especially appreciated reading this after Warmth of Suns.
nicbogen's review against another edition
4.0
It is an intimate portrait of a woman's journey to discover her multicolored roots throughout the United States.
tikidream's review against another edition
4.0
Audiobook is narrated by the author. This moving story of family, history and place is eye opening. History here that I was unfamiliar with.
stacyverb's review
3.0
The history and travel aspects of this were really engaging, the genealogical parts less so (for me personally... others may love that).
streberkatze's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
I loved the way the author explored the histories of African American communities in different parts of the U. S. through the lens of her family's history. As both a white immigrant and a historian, I took away los of new information from this book, including about the histories of Black communities in Places I have lived. The book is incredibly well researched. And because of the personal aspect of the book it has an aspect of self-reflection and depth many other history non-fiction books lack due to genre conventions.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism and Slavery
Moderate: Gun violence, Racial slurs, Rape, and Police brutality
Minor: Genocide
bethwidcapo's review against another edition
3.0
The journey into the history of her family and American history was interesting, but I was disappointed in the writing, which often felt flat and was in some places awkward. Polishing the prose for concision and stylistic interest would have really helped engage this reader.
tritsaboo's review against another edition
3.0
3.5. There were interesting bits, mostly when the author tied her research into more general themes like the discussion of Black people’s relationship to water. I also found her discussion of LA at the end interesting. Hard to imagine that sundown towns still existed in LA in the late 60s. But I got bogged down by a lot of her family history details and her research process. Glad I stuck with it, but enjoyed her previous memoir more.
jennyyates's review against another edition
4.0
This book has a really interesting premise, and it lives up to it. It’s uneven, and it wasn’t adequately edited, and there were times I was annoyed by this. But it’s full of really interesting information, intriguing ideas, and personal experiences.
The author’s message is that family stories are important, and they need to be listened to – even when documentation isn’t there, even when there’s no DNA evidence. The stories are links to forgotten or denied strands of history, especially for African-Americans. And so Morgan Jerkins starts with her family history, and goes exploring, and the things she finds are fascinating.
Along the way, she confronts her own assumptions and prejudices, and finds many of them untrue. She begins in the South, checking out the Creole culture, and learns more about the people who occupied the swamps, islands, and waterways. Then she goes to the Midwest, to investigates rumors of a Native American heritage. She ends up in Los Angeles, the promised land for many migrating African Americans, and writes about some of the reasons things went wrong there.
Let me end with some quotes. In this first quote, she’s writing about Hilton Head Island, once occupied largely by African Americans who bought land after slavery ended, and who were forced out by white land-owners over time:
< I saw the word plantation so much I was starting to get a headache. Plantation Café & Grill, Plantation Café & Deli, Plantation Shopping Center, Paper & Party Plantation, Plantation Drive, Plantation Road, Plantation Club, Plantation Animal Hospital Plantation Interiors, Plantation Cabinetry, Plantation Station Inc… With every road I passed, there was another indication of a perverse symmetry between leisure and slavery. >
< I was going to take these Seminole freedmen’s stories, as well as the stories of everyone else I would interview for this book, as valid and reorient myself to a different kind of truth, one that does not rely solely on documents and textbooks. This different kind of truth is less static and more fluid, persisting throughout generations of marginalized people and outside the traditional framework, which favors the voices of the powerful over the voices of the disempowered. >
< In the 1920s and 1930s, about 10 percent of the police in every California city were Ku Klux Klan members. William Parker, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1950 to 1966, recruited military and police veterans from the South, seeking the most racist cops he could find. While Los Angeles black churches were trying to lure black Southerners to flee to escape the KKK, white supremacists were already in control of the city, now dressed in blue instead of white. >
The author’s message is that family stories are important, and they need to be listened to – even when documentation isn’t there, even when there’s no DNA evidence. The stories are links to forgotten or denied strands of history, especially for African-Americans. And so Morgan Jerkins starts with her family history, and goes exploring, and the things she finds are fascinating.
Along the way, she confronts her own assumptions and prejudices, and finds many of them untrue. She begins in the South, checking out the Creole culture, and learns more about the people who occupied the swamps, islands, and waterways. Then she goes to the Midwest, to investigates rumors of a Native American heritage. She ends up in Los Angeles, the promised land for many migrating African Americans, and writes about some of the reasons things went wrong there.
Let me end with some quotes. In this first quote, she’s writing about Hilton Head Island, once occupied largely by African Americans who bought land after slavery ended, and who were forced out by white land-owners over time:
< I saw the word plantation so much I was starting to get a headache. Plantation Café & Grill, Plantation Café & Deli, Plantation Shopping Center, Paper & Party Plantation, Plantation Drive, Plantation Road, Plantation Club, Plantation Animal Hospital Plantation Interiors, Plantation Cabinetry, Plantation Station Inc… With every road I passed, there was another indication of a perverse symmetry between leisure and slavery. >
< I was going to take these Seminole freedmen’s stories, as well as the stories of everyone else I would interview for this book, as valid and reorient myself to a different kind of truth, one that does not rely solely on documents and textbooks. This different kind of truth is less static and more fluid, persisting throughout generations of marginalized people and outside the traditional framework, which favors the voices of the powerful over the voices of the disempowered. >
< In the 1920s and 1930s, about 10 percent of the police in every California city were Ku Klux Klan members. William Parker, chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1950 to 1966, recruited military and police veterans from the South, seeking the most racist cops he could find. While Los Angeles black churches were trying to lure black Southerners to flee to escape the KKK, white supremacists were already in control of the city, now dressed in blue instead of white. >
hannahbeereads's review against another edition
4.0
4/5
I listened to this as an audiobook and I appreciated the author’s delivery of the work. I always feel strange about giving a star rating to a memoir, so I err on the high side. It’s engaging and dives into family history in a compelling way, though I wonder if reading it on paper would give me a different view of it.
I listened to this as an audiobook and I appreciated the author’s delivery of the work. I always feel strange about giving a star rating to a memoir, so I err on the high side. It’s engaging and dives into family history in a compelling way, though I wonder if reading it on paper would give me a different view of it.