A vivid, groundbreaking history of the legacies of slavery in an elite Northern town as told by its Black residents
I Hear My People Singing shines a light on a small but historic Black neighborhood at the heart of one of the most elite and world-renowned Ivy-League towns-Princeton, New Jersey. The vivid first-person accounts of more than fifty Black residents detail aspects of their lives throughout the twentieth century. Their stories show that the roots of Princeton-s African American community are as deeply intertwined with the town and university as they are with the history of the United States, the legacies of slavery, and the nation-s current conversations on race.
Drawn from an oral history collaboration with residents of the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood, Princeton undergraduates, and their professor, Kathryn Watterson, neighbors speak candidly about Jim Crow segregation, the consequences of school integration, World Wars I and II, and the s
