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Throughout the book, the prodigals discuss the concept of "going home," of returning to familiar terrain, reclaiming old land and responsibilities, and reconnecting with family members who stayed behind. Often, these people, disillusioned with urban life, find themselves in dire financial straits in locales crippled by poverty and government neglect.
Still, they come. In 1970, the U.S. Census Bureau indicated about 50,000 African Americans were heading Southward yearly. By 1990, more than 500,000 blacks had relocated in the New South. One of Stack's most touching stories concerns the family of Samuel Bishop, whose oldest daughter, Eula, returns from Brooklyn, New York to the old homestead in Burdy's Bend. A strong feisty woman and former rent strike organizer, Eula is hit with several blows, including the sudden death of her father and the escalating debts of the land. She battles bravely to keep the sod from greedy speculators, fighting for the land where her bloodline had invested so many years of their lives.
Call to Home, rich with real-life, heartwrenching stories like Sam's and Eula's, reminds us of the basic issues of family, community, struggle, love, and commitment. Writing with a novelist's ear and eye, Stack allows the people, such as Donald, a Vietnam vet going home on a personal quest, to sum up one of the book's essential themes: "We're the ones now that have been shoved aside-we're the folk who've gotten everything robbed from us. And we just have to move in and say, 'This is ours, it's rightfully ours. It's our land too.'"
Robert Fleming is a journalist and author of The Wisdom of the Elders.
©1996, ProMotion, inc.
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