I grew up hearing stories about my great-grandparents. Great-grandaddy was a factory worker, and Big Mama was a domestic, working in the homes of rich White folk. When they fled the South to escape Jim Crow, lynching, hatred, and despair, they had a prior foundation of faith and therefore an expectation of success. They came up North seeking hope for a better life and freedom from oppression.
Jobs were plentiful when they first arrived. Factories in the North opened their doors to Black workers, offering opportunities, even though working conditions were often arduous and sometimes dangerous. However, despite my great-grandparents’ optimism, the improvements they were seeking arrived slowly, like water seeping through a basement wall. But it eventually arrived.
For my great-grandparents, their foundation of faith survived the weight of prevailing counter-evidence that included lynchings, redlining, employment discrimination, and police violence that was taking place all around them. God’s grace, through their faith, intervened in their situation and strengthened their resolve to press forward toward a better life.
