Many books have told the epic story of the black migration out of the south into the northern cities. But few people are aware that over the past 20 years a reverse exodus of half-a-million black Americans to the rural south has been underway. These men, women and children who have spent all or part of their lives in large urban cities are abandoning city life and moving south, often back to their childhood homes. The U.S. Census Bureau now predicts that this southward trend will continue well into the next century. The South, scene of grief and suffering for black Americans, never ceased to represent home to many city-dwellers. For Call to Home , Carol Stack conducted interviews with hundreds of people who returned south, observed them in their families and communities over the 8 years of this study, read scholarly works and fiction, news articles and census reports to report on the complexities and emotional subtleties of this reverse migration phenomenon. She tells the highly individual stories of a diverse number of southern returnees who have jobs as farmers, chicken packers, maids, teachers and community organizers. Stack also integrates their moving migration narratives with a keen social analysis of migration, poverty and the urban poor.