Three Girls from Bronzeville: A Uniquely American Memoir of Race, Fate, and Sisterhood

"The three girls formed an indelible bond: roaming their community in search of hidden treasures for their "Thing Finder box," and hiding under the dining room table, eavesdropping as three generations of relatives gossiped and played the numbers. The girls spent countless afternoons together, ice skating in the nearby Lake Meadows apartment complex, swimming in the pool at the Ida B. Wells housing project, and daydreaming of their futures: Dawn a writer, Debra a doctor, Kim a teacher. Then they came to a precipice, a fraught rite of passage for all girls when the dangers and the harsh realities of the world burst the innocent bubble of childhood, when the choices they made could-- and would-- have devastating consequences. There was a razor thin margin of error -- especially for brown girls. With a keen investigative eye and intimate detail, Dawn chronicles the dramatic turns that send their lives careening in very different -- and shocking -- directions over the decades. The result is a powerful tour de force on the complex interplay of race and opportunity, class and womanhood and how those forces shape our lives and our capacity for resilience and redemption"--
In Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, three Black girls are all hopes and dreams until fate intervenes, first slowly and then dramatically, sending them all careening in wildly different directions, which results in heartbreak, loss, displacement and even murder. 75,000 first printing.
A &;beautiful, tragic, and inspiring&; (Publishers Weekly, starred review) memoir about three Black girls from the storied Bronzeville section of Chicago that offers a penetrating exploration of race, opportunity, friendship, sisterhood, and the powerful forces at work that allow some to flourish&;and others to falter.They were three Black girls. Dawn, tall and studious; her sister, Kim, younger by three years and headstrong as they come; and her best friend, Debra, already prom-queen pretty by third grade. They bonded&;fervently and intensely in that unique way of little girls&;as they roamed the concrete landscape of Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on Chicago&;s South Side, the destination of hundreds of thousands of Black folks who fled the ravages of the Jim Crow South. These third-generation daughters of the Great Migration come of age in the 1970s, in the warm glow of the recent civil rights movement. It has offered them a promise, albeit nascent and fragile, that they will have more opportunities, rights, and freedoms than any generation of Black Americans in history. Their working-class, striving parents are eager for them to realize this hard-fought potential. But the girls have much more immediate concerns: hiding under the dining room table and eavesdropping on grown folks&; business; collecting secret treasures; and daydreaming about their futures&;Dawn and Debra, doctors, Kim a teacher. For a brief, wondrous moment the girls are all giggles and dreams and promises of &;friends forever.&; And then fate intervenes, first slowly and then dramatically, sending them careening in wildly different directions. There&;s heartbreak, loss, displacement, and even murder. Dawn struggles to make sense of the shocking turns that consume her sister and her best friend, all the while asking herself a simple but profound question: Why? In the vein of The Other Wes Moore and The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, Three Girls from Bronzeville is a piercing memoir that chronicles Dawn&;s attempt to find answers. It&;s at once a celebration of sisterhood and friendship, a testimony to the unique struggles of Black women, and a tour-de-force about the complex interplay of race, class, and opportunity, and how those forces shape our lives and our capacity for resilience and redemption.