Deep Roots Vol. 7 — Two States, One Story (Interactive Edition)

The capstone. Six volumes told Texas and Louisiana separately; this one proves they were never separate stories — they are one corridor, and this book walks it end to end.

The roads before the roads, and the rails that replaced them. The other Great Migration — the great move that stayed South: historian Luther Pruitt's count of roughly 50,000 Black Louisianans who came to Houston between 1900 and 1950 — printed as the combined Texas-and-Louisiana figure it is, never split into numbers Pruitt didn't publish. Frenchtown, Houston's Creole neighborhood, organized in 1922 by some 500 Creole families (Texas Historical Commission Marker 15097), where you could hear the corridor — zydeco, from les haricots sont pas salés, "the snap beans aren't salty." And then the corridor comes home: one family's corridor — the author's own Youngs, Webbs, and Iversons, traced from Shreveport and North Louisiana to Houston from documented records only: census pages, a 1950 census household, an estate, obituaries. Where the records run out, the book says so and stops. No birth certificate is quoted; nothing is dramatized; what is still an open question is printed as an open question.

The closing chapter turns back over the whole series: the receipts outlast the erasure.

Inside the Interactive Edition:

- The complete book — all 6 chapters, full text, including the author's family chapter built from documented records only

- Recorded narration by Marcus — about 71 minutes, every chapter read aloud

- A chronological timeline that jumps straight to the chapter behind each date

- A 10-question educator quiz drawn strictly from the text

- Every chapter closes with its sources and a method note — combined figures stay combined, open questions stay open

- The storybook-style cover, drawn for young readers and the families who read with them

- For educators: a TEKS correlation sheet for this volume is available with the Deep Roots Educator materials — it correlates the family chapter to the skills strands only, with no content claim, and says why

The chapters: The Road Before the Road · Iron Corridors: The Rails That Ran the Corridor · The Other Great Migration: The Move That Stayed South · Frenchtown: The Corridor You Can Hear · One Family's Corridor: The Youngs, the Webbs, and the Iversons · Two States, One Story: The Receipts Outlast the Erasure

Two states. One story. All receipts.