Three Rivers Crossed

Three Rivers Crossed is a celebrated examination of the good intentions and needless secrets surrounding an unwanted birth and a cleverly woven heroic tale of the molding of a mid-20th century Afro-American female confronting the American Dream. The buildings that comprised Linda Jean Hall's childhood no longer exist; but the small enclave is forever memorialized in the memoir as the tale of the Village, an Afro-American community of southern migrants immersed in an ethnically diverse neighborhood on the northwest side of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This book is a tribute to the shared mission of the residents of the Village to save every child despite the confusion of the black experience within a nation undergoing war, death and revolution. Three Rivers Crossed explores Linda Jean Hall's "coming of age" as a personal, frank and sometimes-humorous quest to define oneself while moving forward to take on self-imposed obstacles, deceptions and blatant untruths. Southern California's Women's Literary Festival in Santa Barbara recognized Hall's academic writing as an anthropologist and the important social value of Three Rivers Crossed as a body of work promoting "literacy, diversity, and social justice". Three Rivers Crossed directly tackles racial and ethnic differences within a historical context of great importance to students analyzing the social dynamics of the Black Diaspora. For these reasons, Three Rivers Crossed earned a place in the collection at the Heinz History Museum's Detre Library and Archives (a Smithsonian affiliate) and endorsements from History, Africana Studies, and Sociology faculty members at the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University, and Point Park University. Illustrations by Holly N. Avery and Deanna Graves.