Veteran Chicago TV and print journalist, now
retired from the Chicago Sun Times, still writes
a column for the Chicago Defender, where he
started out 55 years ago. Mr. Jarrett grew up in a
middle-class family in Paris, Tennessee. He talks
about the economic and political impact of the
migrants on Chicago, with particular
reference to housing.

Recent high school graduate. Mr. Sanders, who lives in the Mississippi Delta, tells how he will
have to leave and describes some of the conflicts
in his mind, echoing the experiences of many of
his relatives who migrated before him.

Flower store owner. Ms. Wills came to Chicago
with her husband. We also meet her husband
O'dell and two brothers in the film. She is a
former chairperson of the Greenville Travel Club--
a group of former Mississippians who maintain
social contact in Chicago. Every year they
organize a reunion.

Disabled single grandmother. Ms. Thomas
talks about race relations while growing up in
the Mississippi Delta and the incident that
caused her to leave for Chicago. A resident of
the Cabrini Green housing projects, she lives
with seven relatives in her apartment.

Chicago attorney. Mr Braden talkes about the
heyday of Bronzeville, South Side Chicago's
vibrant black community in the 1930s and '40's.

Mayor of Mayersville, Mississippi. Ms Blackwell,
a noted activist for civil rights tells why she
stayed behind in Mississippi "to fight for freedom".

Retired farmers: Mr. & Mrs. Jones tell how
their eight children left for the city one-by-one
until Mr. Jones, without a labor force, was
forced to retire and rent out his land. His one
remaining son drives a tractor for the white
landowner to whom he now rents back his land.

Post-office employee. Mr. Wiley was raised in
a middle-class family in Greenville, Mississippi.
He came North after serving in the military.
Mr. Wiley worked two blue-collar shifts every
day for twenty-eight years in Chicago. He is
another member of the Greenville Travel
Club and likes to dance.

City councilor, Mayersville, Mississippi,
(pop.450). Ms. Fleming talks about why she
decided to stay in the South and how she
continues to witness the annual parade out
of town by graduation schoolchildren who
now head for Jackson, Memphis, Atlanta
or Houston.

Blues singer, recording artist. Ms. Taylor was
raised in a sharecropping family outside of
Memphis, Tennessee. She describes the
experiences growing up and coming to
Chicago to work as a maid.

Educator, Clarksdale, Mississippi. Dr. Martin,
the son of a Delta sharecropping family, earned
a doctorate in education and returned to
become the president of the community
college in his home town.

Retired professor from the Chicago City
College system. Mr. Black migrated to Chicago
with his family in 1920 from Birmingham,
Alabama. He defines the distinctions between
the two migration waves and their differing
impact on the city, and comments on the
cultural changes he has witnessed. Mr Black,
a featured interviewee in three of Studs Terkel's
books, is currently writing Bridges of Memory,
a memoir on three generations of his family.

Former Mississippi Delta sharecropper, mother
of 13 children. Seven of Ms. Carter's younger
chidren were the first to integrate the public
school system in Sunflower County, Mississippi.
The story is told in Constance Curry's Silver
Rights, (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1995.)
Ms. Carter tells why she declined to move North.

Unemployed steelworker. Mr. Robertson talks
about coming to Chicago — a mecca for working
men at the time — and how he was laid off with
few opportunities for employment after working
30 years at the steel plant.

Left the Delta at aged 14 to move to Chicago in
an effort to support his mother and younger
siblings. He now owns a fish market and several
small businesses on the West Side. Mr. Duwell
vows to return to live on the land his family has
faithfully held onto in Mississippi.