NORMAN
CAIN
FELLOW
Meet Norman Lee Cain, Jr. Born in Philadelphia in 1942, Norman spent his young summers traveling back South to his extended family. As the product of both the North and South, the cultures of both are reflected in his writing. He graduated in 1964 from the Bluefield State College in West Virginia, where he majored in Social Science and minored in English, and from 1965 to 1967 he served in the Army branch of the U.S. military. A retired social worker, teacher, father of five, and grandfather of seven, he is active in several writing groups, including the Best Day of My Life So Far at the Germantown Senior Center and Writers Room. His works can be read in several volumes of Writers Room’s Anthology series and in numerous local and online publications. His multi-modal project will use essays, video interviews, poems, memoirs, and other media to examine the socio/psychological relationships between those African-Americans who experienced the movement between the North and the South, now known as the First and Second Great Migrations.
NORMAN CAIN BY DEJAH MCINTOSH
UNPACKING THE GREAT MIGRATION
Norman Cain, a proud UnMapping Fellow, explores his ongoing project and his recent travel experiences. Mr. Cain recently went upstate to the Bronx to meet with his family and trace his ancestral roots. On this two-fold mission Norman was able to capture oral history and participate in a video interview..
On his latest research trip to New York…
For 46 years, my father’s side of the family – Robinson side – have held a family reunion. No reunion in that 46-year period has been missed. When I went to New York, I went to my cousin’s house up in the Bronx, joined by two men who flew in from North Carolina. Additionally, there was one lady, who was on zoom from Virginia.
Back around 1995, one of the pillars of my family reunions, from South Carolina, did oral interviews with folk who were old enough to be our parents. The family line goes back to Frederick Robinson, who with Louvenia, had 19 children. Each year when we go through the reunion, hosts would call out the name of each of the 19 children and then those in attendance would stand up in honor of what blood line they came through...
On the UnMapping Project…
My reunion members had some ideas about what my project was and what it was supposed to be about... We were a family of the Great Migration and we saw how it affected the migrants through religion, occupation, discrimination, physically, and so forth… Steven Meyers, who was raised in Florence, South Carolina, a small city, said that when he visited the country, twenty miles away, the "Jim Crow" practices of the old south were still practiced. In terms of white and black water fountain, white and black bathrooms, and facilities.
On the religious shift within—in Norman’s words—the Afro-American, West Philadelphia community of his youth...
Mr. Wilson, another pillar of the community, became a member of the Nation of Islam. My mother and him both came up from the south together, so Mr. Wilson would come over with books and go out into the streets and debate. No screaming, no hollering, peaceful discussion of Christianity vs Islam.
On the contrast between Northern and Southern black culture and how it has changed over time...
Mainly they would be known as the black bourgeoisie. A very hidden element to keep their status. They keep their mouths shut because they don’t want to be robbed of their secret societies. In order to get in, you basically had to be very wealthy, come from particular families, and [there were] even skin color comparisons. Very secretive… When we would come down from the North, we were like movie stars. But now, we are the same! … Additionally, the society down south is no longer retaining the culture of Africa and are diminishing as developers are going in and taking away the land. That’s what I’m seeing. Now it holds less of the southern roots.
On the changes he’s seen within his own West Philadelphia community...
As people spread out, less of the culture is around... there used to be bars on every corner, breakfast spots, etc., but we gave up a lot for the American dream.
MEET
NORMAN
ON
NORMAN’S
BOOKSHELF
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Isabel Wilkerson