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To Handcuff Lightning Between the years of 1940–1970, more than five million African Americans left the South and migrated north. It was the largest, mostly undocumented, migration in U.S. history. Edward and Algie Clover of Dublin, Georgia, along with their three daughters and Algie’s mother, were among the millions who made that journey and found their promised land in Dayton, Ohio. Dayton is 650 miles from Dublin, about an 11-hour car ride. But in the 1950s it was a lifetime away from share-cropping, segregation, and the shadow of slavery. In Dayton, the Clovers would unexpectedly become a family of women, which for better or worse, is an inherited friendship. Tressie the duplicate, Honey the heart, and Viola the contradiction will test their mother Algie's ability to hold together that most sacred form of human identity, the family. Today, too many sisters, aunts, grandmothers, and wives are multi-tasking themselves into all the wrong decisions. Algie made all the right decisions because her “yes” meant yes, and her “no” meant no. She isn’t a martyr, a saint, or a hero, but Algie, like so many others that made that journey north, helped mold the African-American female genus. It is a kinship that will nurture the offspring of mammies, maids, and big Mommas into the highest echelons of fame, wealth, and recognition. But for now, Algie and her family are just thankful they were able to leave the plantations behind and find a place that feels something like home. Read an excerpt from this book below. 
Excerpt from To Handcuff Lightning When Eddie Mack first came to call on Algie, Chauncey tore into him with a relentless verbal attack. “No, he could not come to the house.” “No, he could not take her daughter on a picnic.” “No, he could not walk her daughter home from church.” Through it all, Eddie Mack just smiled --- not at Chauncey --- but directly at Algie. Three months after he first saw her sitting next to her grandmother in church and now, without so much as having ever even exchanged a kiss, Eddie Mack rolled his truck (engine off) into Algie’s front yard. She saw him through the window and ran to open the front door. She stood in the doorway and silently watched him approach her. Eddie Mack walked up, quietly took Algie’s hand, and led her to his truck. They quickly drove away, leaving the front door standing wide open and a bewildered and angry Chauncey yelling after them. They were married that same day; she was 17, he was 21.
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