My Family:

Parmele, North Carolina. Nice town. Not many jobs, though, in 1929. Not enough work for Daddy, a man with a wife and two children. Some people were moving north Mama and Daddy read about it, heard about it, from cousins and friends. "Come north," they said. "Come to Washington, DC." August. Mama and Daddy wait at the station for Daddy's train. Sad to separate, even for a little while. Maybe longer. Who knows? They say goodbye, but Mama doesn't cry. Yet. She walks the road home, alone. Sits on the porch and lets the tears fall.

One long month and the money comes. Train ticket money. Daddy's found a job and a place for us to live. "All aboard!" the conductor calls. Not an easy trip for Mama. Two babies to care for. Me, four months old, my big brother, Wilbur, eighteen months. A long ride, and then, "Wash-ing-ton!" the conductor calls. We're home.

We were one family among the many thousands. Mama and Daddy leaving home, coming to the city, with their hopes and their courage, their dreams and their children, to make a better life. 

From: The Great Migration: Journey to the North (2006)

 Eloise Greenfield's Washington, DC

 Langston Terrace         Cardozo Senior      Miner Teacher's      Apartments                   High School          College 

Eloise Glynn Little grew up in Washington, DC. She graduated from Cardozo Senior High School and went on to attend Miner Teachers College. Both were, at that time, segregated schools for people of color. At 21 she married Bobby Greenfield. She worked at the US Patent Office for many years.

She was a young mother of two when she began to seriously consider writing to escape the boredom of her work. Her first book was published in 1972. She experienced success with her second book, a biography of Rosa Parks. She went on writing. Her first collection of poems, Honey, I Love, was published in 1978. To date, she has written 45 books for children that reflect the lives of ordinary black Americans.

Ms. Greenfield is now in her eighties, a proud mother of two and grandmother of four. She continues to write for children. Her most recent book, The Great Migration: Journey to the North (2011) won the Coretta Scott King Author Honor Award in 2012. She still lives in Washington, DC.

For more information visit Online Resources listed on the Books and Awards page. You may also want to read Childtimes (1978), the memoir she wrote with her mother about three generations of women in her family.