They were three Black girls. Dawn, tall and studious; her sister, Kim, younger by three years and headstrong as they come; and her best friend, Debra, already prom-queen pretty by third grade. They bonded—fervently and intensely in that unique way of little girls—as they roamed the concrete landscape of Bronzeville, a historic neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, the destination of hundreds of thousands of Black folks who fled the ravages of the Jim Crow South.

These third-generation daughters of the Great Migration come of age in the 1970s, in the warm glow of the recent civil rights movement. It has offered them a promise, albeit nascent and fragile, that they will have more opportunities, rights, and freedoms than any generation of Black Americans in history. Their working-class, striving parents are eager for them to realize this hard-fought potential.

But the girls have much more immediate concerns: hiding under the dining room table and eavesdropping on grown folks’ business; collecting secret treasures; and daydreaming about their futures—Dawn and Debra, doctors, Kim a teacher. For a brief, wondrous moment the girls are all giggles and dreams and promises of “friends forever.” And then fate intervenes, first slowly and then dramatically, sending them careening in wildly different directions. There’s heartbreak, loss, displacement, and even murder. Dawn struggles to make sense of the shocking turns that consume her sister and her best friend, all the while asking herself a simple but profound question: Why?

Three Girls from Bronzeville is a deeply personal memoir that chronicles Dawn’s attempt to find answers. It’s at once a celebration of sisterhood and friendship, a testimony to the unique struggles of Black women, and a tour-de-force about the complex interplay of race, class, and opportunity—and how those forces shape our lives and our capacity for resilience and redemption.

Three Girls from Bronzeville was named a Notable Book of 2021 by The New York Times Book Review and a Best Book of 2021 by The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, Library Journal, and others. The book was featured on several national news programs including NPR’s All Things Considered. The book also won the inaugural Pattis Family Foundation Chicago Book Award in 2022, an award given annually to the author of a book in any genre that best transforms public understanding of the Windy City’s history and its people.

Go to the Lake Forest Library catalog to borrow "Three Girls from Bronzeville" by Dawn Turner

Go to the Lake Bluff Public Library catalog to borrow "Three Girls from Bronzeville" by Dawn Turner