The Great Migration and the Emergence of Black Havens in August Wilson's Joe Turner's Come and Gone and Toni Morrison's Paradise

Abstract

In this article, I situate August Wilsons Joe Turners Come and Gone and Toni Morrisons Paradise in the Great Migration (1915-1970) during the early- and mid-twentieth century. In so doing, I intend to show both the potential and limit of building all-black community against the white oppression in the US. Specifically, Seth Hollys boardinghouse in Wilsons play and the Convent in Morrisons novel serve as a temporary shelter for African American wanderers but fail to produce a Utopian sanctuary for all-black community. Nonetheless, they become a stage where black migrants frustration, internal conflicts, rage, and trauma are projected and re-enacted. By reiterating the pathological symptoms of black migrants even in those sequestered, supposedly safe black havens, the two authors put the idea of all-black community in question and defer the moment of black migrants wish-fulfillment through which they dramatically expose the traumatized mentality of black migrants and their rootless wanderings.