Davalyn Powell's Research
John Edgar Wideman's memoir as an African American road narrative
John Edgar Wideman's memoir, Brothers and Keepers, is a story that focuses on two brothers, John and Robby, who grow up in the all-black section of Homewood in Pittsburgh. Despite their similar backgrounds, the brothers grow in opposite directions. John goes to college, eventually becoming a writer and professor at the University of Wyoming, while Robby turns to a life of drugs and crime, and ends up serving a life sentence in jail. Wideman's book uses the road as a means to escape an old way of life and attain a new, better way of life, paralleling the historical African American construction of the road through epic movements such as the Great Migration.
The Great Migration of the early twentieth century was a time when many African Americans took to road, leaving their southern rural homes for the cities of the North. Thomas Maloney discusses in his article how these men and women sought the opportunities that the North promised, opportunities such as jobs, education, and tolerance. They wished to leave behind the racism and animosity of the Jim Crow South. The road was seen as a path to freedom and a better life. However, the Great Migration may also be seen in a negative light. Playwright August Wilson feels that the Great Migration led to much alienation and failure in the African American race. He believes that many of the blacks in the mass movement had their hopes dashed by the continued racism of the urban North and further lack of opportunity.
John and Robby Wideman both attempt to use the road to escape their past and to achieve their dreams for the future. For instance, John moves across the country from Pittsburgh to Laramie, Wyoming. He does this to escape the black culture of Homewood and to secure an education and a better life for himself. Despite the hopes that he has for his new life and family, John feels that he can never escape Homewood, that it is a part of him, and that if he continues trying to run, it will destroy him. Through this, his experiences on the road go from positive to negative. His brother, Robby, also has many positive views of the road. At one point in time, he and his friends travel to Detroit to buy drugs that they will then deal back in Pittsburgh. They believe that this trip will lead them to the good life, that they will earn more money and respect, and that their problems will end. However, the road becomes a negative place for Robby as well when he goes on the run from the police. He uses the road to escape his problems at home and hopes to start over with a new life in Los Angeles, but the constant running wears on him and his is eventually caught.
Sources
Bayor, Ronald H. “The Second Ghetto: Then and Now.” Journal of Urban History 29.3 (2003): 238-42.
Fast, Robin Riley. “Brothers and Keepers and the Tradition of the Slave Narrative.” MELUS 22.4 (1997): 3-20.
Maloney, Thomas N. “African American Migration to the North: New Evidence for the 1910s.” Economic Inquiry 40.1 (January 2002): 1-11.
Shannon, Sandra G. “A Transplant That Did Not Take: August Wilson’s views on the Great Migration.” African American Review 31.4 (1997): 659-667.
Wideman, John Edgar. Brothers and Keepers. New York: Random House, Inc., 1984.
