The Winds of Change

By C. J. PAYNE

Unfolding over a period of eighty years, a multi-generation novel of epic proportions. For many young African American women, Chicago represented hope and a way to escape the turmoil of the Jim Crow South. Jobs, and no more bowing and scraping. A chance to experience a different kind of life. Some parts are spoken in the rich vernacular of the South; this is the story of five such women. Bertha Pruitt, an amber-eyed beauty, falls in love and leaves Mississippi for the love of her life. Only to find out on a cold winter night, nothing was what it seemed. But Bertha had the gifts to survive the trials and turbulence of the Windy City.
Fanny Malone, a timid dreamer, married at fourteen to a man who sought a better way to support his ever-growing family. Pretty Hazel Washington, determined to marry a man to take her away from her small Southern town, would lose her way in the North. Izora Lee, a big-boned, fiery woman who pushed her quiet husband to move North, only to run him away, tired of being berated in his home. Beth Ann, the last to arrive, in the calmness of the early fifties, before America erupted in racial violence
They would meet others along the way, Idalia, pretty but selfish, who had forgotten how to love. Della is a Louisiana siren. All arriving at one place in time - the West Side of Chicago. But wait. Their children, the Baby Boomers, came as a new generation who would be the catalyst for change before the turbulent end of the century. From the cotton fields to the factories of the North, this is a story of America.
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• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0GW713Y1X
• ISBN13: 9798218932800
• Release Date: April 2026
• Publisher: C.J. Payne
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 0.97 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.0" x 9.0"