The Great Migration

Emmaline Hardwick’s grandparents’ and parents’ experiences in rural Georgia during the Jim Crow era present a stark contrast with the Jourdains’ journey in New England.

At the dawn of the Reconstruction era, after the end of the Civil War in 1865, emancipated Black Americans quickly began to exercise their new citizenship in the South. Legal documents, such as voter registration cards and marriage licenses, reflect these newly state-sanctioned rights. Henry Hardwick, Emmaline’s grandfather, received a certificate acknowledging his marriage to Julia Berry in June 1867, and secured his voter registration card the next month. With these new rights, Black families like the Hardwicks strove toward economic freedom by working as sharecroppers, tenant farmers, or itinerant laborers.

Julia and Henry Hardwick’s son, Joe, grew up in Hancock County, Georgia, keen to explore towns throughout his home state while earning his living farming and doing handywork. He married Rosa English in June 1901, and the couple settled in Warrenton, Georgia, where their daughter Emmaline was born in 1910. The family experienced the harsh realities of racial segregation, and “the still growing racial oppression caused ripples in the briefly quiet life Joe and Rosa were working hard to build.” The lack of steady employment and the ever-present threat of racial violence prompted Joe to move his family North in the 1920s.

Joe and Anna Hardwick Babcock, Joe Hardwick’s in-laws, had successfully established a small convenience store in Evanston, Illinois, where Joe and Rosa eventually settled. The Babcocks provided early employment to Joe, making the Hardwicks’ move possible. In Evanston, both families found work, safety, and community, and became active members of the city’s thriving Black community.

In the fall of 1930, Emmaline Hardwick began her freshman year at the historically Black Fisk University. Like W.E.B. Du Bois (A.B. 1890, A.M. 1891, Ph.D. 1895) almost 50 years earlier, she benefited from the cultural environment and quality education offered by Fisk, which empowered thousands of young Black people to lead successful lives and make significant contributions to their communities and to the nation.

The Fisk Jubilee Singers played an important role in Emmaline’s college experience. The group, organized in 1871, had received international acclaim since their founding, as they broke racial barriers and crossed geographic borders, and introduced the world to moving renditions of Negro spirituals. In doing so, they were able to raise significant funds that sustained the university. They also provided a community for generations of students like Emmaline, who briefly added her voice to the troupe.

While Emmaline Hardwick left Fisk prior to graduation to marry Edwin Jourdain Jr., her HBCU experience stayed with her throughout her life.