People associate the South Bronx with gangs; violence; drugs; crime; burned-out buildings; and poverty. This is the message that has been driven into their heads over the years by the media. As Howard Cosell famously said during the 1977 World’s Series at Yankee Stadium; “There it is; ladies and gentlemen; the Bronx is burning.†In this new book; Naison and Gumbs provide a completely different picture of the South Bronx through interviews with residents who lived here from the 1930s to the 1960s.In the early 1930s; word began to spread among economically secure black families in Harlem that there were spacious apartments for rent in the Morrisania section of the Bronx. Landlords in that community; desperate to fill their rent rolls and avoid foreclosure; began putting up signs in their windows and in advertisements in New York’s black newspapers that said; “We rent to select colored families;†by which they meant families with a securely employed wage earner and light complexions. Black families who fit these criteria began renting apartments by the score. Thus began a period of about twenty years during which the Bronx served as aborough of hope and unlimited possibilities for upwardly mobile black families.Chronicling a time when African Americans were suspended between the best and worst possibilities of New York City; Before the Fires tells the personal stories of seventeen men and women who lived in the South Bronx before the social and economic decline of the area that began in the late 1960s. Located on a hill hovering over one of the borough’s largest industrial districts; Morrisania offered black migrants from Harlem; the South; and the Caribbean an opportunity to raise children in a neighborhood that had better schools; strong churches; better shopping; less crime; and clean air. This culturally rich neighborhood also boasted some of the most vibrant music venues in all of New York City; giving rise to such music titans as Lou Donaldson; Valerie Capers; Herbie Hancock; Eddie Palmieri; Donald Byrd; Elmo Hope; Henry “Red†Allen; Bobby Sanabria; Valerie Simpson; Maxine Sullivan; the Chantels; the Chords; and Jimmy Owens.Alternately analytical and poetic; but all rich in detail; these inspiring interviews describe growing up and living in vibrant black and multiracial Bronx communities whose contours have rarely graced the pages of histories of the Bronx or black New York City. Capturing the excitement of growing up in this stimulating and culturally diverse environment; Before the Fires is filled with the optimism of the period and the heartache of what was shattered in the urban crisis and the burning of the Bronx.
#4110394 in Books University of Pittsburgh Press 2005-09-20Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.25 x 1.00 x 6.13l; 1.30 #File Name: 0822942615312 pages
Review
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful. An excellent documentation of the Great Lakes trading patterns and influencesBy Midwest Book ReviewA perfectly unified co-authorship of seminal scholarship by the team of John J. Bukowczyk (Professor of History and Director of the Canadian Studies Program at Wayne State University in Detroit); Nora Faires (Associate Professor of History and Women's Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo); David R. Smith (History Instructor and Academic Advisor at the University of Michigan; Ann Arbor) and Randy Williams Widdis (Professor of Geography at the University of Regina) who have expertly collaborated to present an informed and informative history of the Great Lakes significance in America's modern trade in the Preamble Border: The Great Lakes Basin As Transnational Region; 1650-1990. A work of impeccable scholarship and painstaking research; Preamble Border is a seminal benchmark reference for the significant activity on the Great Lakes for trade between its most active years of 1650 and 1990. A work of impressive originality and very strongly recommended to any reader with an interest in the history of the Great Lakes region; Permeable Border provides an excellent documentation of the Great Lakes trading patterns and influences.
