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A review by elijah1370
The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America by Nicholas Lemann
4.0
While this book had a number of shortcomings, I rated it highly because the quality of the historical social journalism was excellent.
Lemann, a liberal journalist and native of New Orleans, brings a higher level of nuance to this topic than most works on this subject. His descriptions and narrative storytelling often feel detached and analytical, but he does possess a sense of moral justice that shows through.
That being said, his descriptions of events, specifically related to the formation of policy and political dynamics, are the real strength of this story. The large middle chapter, titled 'Washington,' has the strongest writing in the entire book and provides a rich description of how the federal government responded to black urban poverty from the 60s to the 80s. Ironically, this chapter drifts substantially away from the main topic of the book, the black great migration itself. While the stories he tells of individual lives in the Clarksdale and Chicago chapters certainly enrich the writing and provide valuable context, they often feel cherry-picked in a way that reinforces the stereotypical thinking about urban black populations that Lemann is trying to critique.
The contemporary reader in the 2020s should be aware that Lemann is writing from the perspective of the late 80's. Today we can admit that this was a dark time for urban black populations and American cities and that things have improved significantly since then. However, his language of the "issue" of "black ghettos" is now painfully dated. The work is definitely a product of its time but still holds incredible merit when taken in proper context.
Lastly, I found the solutions posted in the afterword a bit puzzling. He spent an entire book criticizing the federal government's response to black urban poverty, then submits that the solution lies in better-designed federal programs. I found this perspective highly dated and revealing of the author's limitations, especially from the perspective of the 2020's where the success of black Americans has not been because of government programs, but because of black solidarity and the decrease of systematic prejudice within the broader culture. Regardless, he submits his solutions separate from the rest of the book and they did not diminish the rest of the writing.
This is a work worth reading for anyone interested in a rich, historical, albeit somewhat detached, perspective on this topic. However, for someone looking to begin learning about this topic, I would recommend "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson. This work has greater emotional engagement with the subject matter, is more current and culturally relevant, and, importantly, makes the great migration itself the main topic of the work. However, "The Promised Land" still holds up as a text worth reading for its richness of information and social analysis.
Lemann, a liberal journalist and native of New Orleans, brings a higher level of nuance to this topic than most works on this subject. His descriptions and narrative storytelling often feel detached and analytical, but he does possess a sense of moral justice that shows through.
That being said, his descriptions of events, specifically related to the formation of policy and political dynamics, are the real strength of this story. The large middle chapter, titled 'Washington,' has the strongest writing in the entire book and provides a rich description of how the federal government responded to black urban poverty from the 60s to the 80s. Ironically, this chapter drifts substantially away from the main topic of the book, the black great migration itself. While the stories he tells of individual lives in the Clarksdale and Chicago chapters certainly enrich the writing and provide valuable context, they often feel cherry-picked in a way that reinforces the stereotypical thinking about urban black populations that Lemann is trying to critique.
The contemporary reader in the 2020s should be aware that Lemann is writing from the perspective of the late 80's. Today we can admit that this was a dark time for urban black populations and American cities and that things have improved significantly since then. However, his language of the "issue" of "black ghettos" is now painfully dated. The work is definitely a product of its time but still holds incredible merit when taken in proper context.
Lastly, I found the solutions posted in the afterword a bit puzzling. He spent an entire book criticizing the federal government's response to black urban poverty, then submits that the solution lies in better-designed federal programs. I found this perspective highly dated and revealing of the author's limitations, especially from the perspective of the 2020's where the success of black Americans has not been because of government programs, but because of black solidarity and the decrease of systematic prejudice within the broader culture. Regardless, he submits his solutions separate from the rest of the book and they did not diminish the rest of the writing.
This is a work worth reading for anyone interested in a rich, historical, albeit somewhat detached, perspective on this topic. However, for someone looking to begin learning about this topic, I would recommend "The Warmth of Other Suns" by Isabel Wilkerson. This work has greater emotional engagement with the subject matter, is more current and culturally relevant, and, importantly, makes the great migration itself the main topic of the work. However, "The Promised Land" still holds up as a text worth reading for its richness of information and social analysis.