Newsboy selling The Chicago Defender, a leading Negro newspaper.

Coming Up North   (continued)

Gladys McKinney

When we came in [from Louisiana] and I saw the light in the station,  I got so excited! I remember the conductor calling out the name [Chicago],  and she [my mother] got us all together,  all of us standing on the platform,  and I saw the light and the people just rustling,  hustling and bustling.   That's when I saw my aunt,  my mother's only living sister,  who had sent for us.

She had gotten us a place—a cold-water flat.   At that time they didn't have [central] heat.   You had a potbelly stove.   My brother got burned pretty bad because he banged into it.   It sat right in the middle of the floor.   And we cooked on it.

The stove used coal.   You'd get the coal off the coal truck.   Then you'd have the icebox,  you had to go catch the iceman,  get the block of ice and lift it.   The bedrooms weren't heated.   She'd leave the door open and the heat from the potbelly stove would heat the bedrooms.

Streets Paved with Gold

Marion Hummons

My uncle wrote and said to come to Chicago because in the North,  especially in Chicago,  the streets were paved with gold.

Junius "Red" Gaten

You see,  life was not easy,  but coming from the South where you was burdened down,  you were afraid to talk...   if you was on the sidewalk white folks come by,  you got to get off,  get in the mud.   Here we had a little freedom.   And it meant so much just to be free and to be able to make your own living and spend your money like you see fit.   Because you didn't have that when I was a boy down South.