She was one of the few people in the neighborhood with a telephone, and she shared it with everyone ― even leaving a key under the mat and a container for folks to leave nickels if they stopped by to use the phone. Carthan helped folks adjust and find jobs and “gave them every reason to look forward, never back.” Between 19, half a million Black Americans moved to Chicago, more than doubling the city’s Black population, and Mamie’s town was a tiny microcosm of that change.Ĭarthan’s house was a center of the community, part social center, part meetinghouse, part job fair and part church. Mamie’s family called their Chicago suburb “Little Mississippi” and thought of her mother Alma Carthan’s house as the Ellis Island of Chicago. Her mother’s house was a gathering place for Black people who left the South in search of a new life.
She wrote, “In Mississippi, there were certain things that black people were denied by white people. ” For the first time, she appreciated the liberty she enjoyed back in Chicago. According to her autobiography, “he pounded the fear of every black person in the state of Mississippi into. Mamie was preparing to say something when her grandfather walked in and escorted her out. She went to the local white-owned drugstore to buy them some real toilet paper, but the owner refused to sell her any, suggesting they use corncobs like everyone else. On a family trip from Chicago to Mississippi when she was 12, Mamie noticed that her grandparents used the Sears, Roebuck, & Co. Is it time for a national park that recognizes him and tells the story of the civil rights struggle in Mississippi? See more ›
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