All-Bright Court

by Connie Rose Porter

Set in a colorfully painted but crumbling housing project near a Buffalo, New York, steel mill, this "novel full of wisdom, grace and poetry" (Newsday) traces two decades in the lives of the project's residents. At the heart of this collective portrait is the Taylor family: Sam, Mary Kate, and their five children. For the Taylors and their neighbors, this is a time of tremendous optimism. The oldest boy, Mikey, shows special promise at school. Sam eats alongside his white coworkers at the local diner after his shift in the mill's inferno. The door to the white world seems to be opening. But time fades optimism: the steel industry falters, men lose their jobs. Mikey learns to distrust hope. The miracle of this heartbreaking story is its warmth in the face of tragic disappointment. All-Bright Court illuminates the dignity, faith, and humor that enable people to endure a world bound by devastating reality.

Genres: Fiction, Historical

224 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 1991

About the author

Connie Rose Porter is an American author best known for her books for children and young adults. She was the third youngest of nine children of a family living in a housing project.
She has since taught English and creative writing at Milton Academy, Emerson College, and Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She was a fellow at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and was a regional winner in Granta's Best Young American Novelist contest.

Reviews

[Bryan Ball · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a truly unique novel, structured more in the form of a series of well connected short stories revolving around the lives of people who live in All Bright Court, a housing project near the (though never mentioned by name) Bethlehem Steel Plant in Lackawanna, NY over the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Never does Porter linger on a character or their immediate family for more than a chapter (though she returns to them in subsequent chapters,) and we’re left with the effect of an almost ghost-like haunting by the characters, their lives and emotional states, which would not work in the hands of a lesser writer than Porter’s talents. By the novel’s end, you are left wanting more, to know what these characters went on to do, the hope that some of them made it to a better place in their lives; and, yet, you are content with the way the novel ends, at the same time.

[Judith Squires · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this decades ago and decided to read it again when I found a copy on an on-line book store. I'd forgotten how wonderful the story was and how much I enjoyed it the first time around. It's about an African-American couple making the migration from the South to a factory town near the huge steel manufacturing mills in Buffalo, New York in the late 50's. The Taylors live in a run-down apartment complex which is still an improvement over the grinding rural poverty they left behind. It relates the changes of the Cold War, the Civil rights era, and the loss of the power of the steel unions and the erosion of blue collar jobs. Beautifully told and the last scene of a father and son during the blizzard of 1977 is one of the best I've ever read.

[Leslie Baker]

This book was an amazing novel. I came across this book while I was in my school library to write an essay on at the end of the quarter. I was surprised to realize how much I enjoyed reading it. If you are the type of person that likes to expand your mindset then I would suggest this book to you. This book holds stories of African American struggles that will be an eye opener to many individuals. This is a great book and I will definitely be reading more of Connie Porter. :)

[Babs M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. I also could relate in that I am from a steel town in NE Ohio. She actually taught me more about the factories than I knew. I knew people just like these characters, the fabric from which America is woven.

[Hannahlynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book

This book is authentic, raw, informative, and uplifting. I would recommend it for high school students with its handy study guide attached. Adults can appreciate it as well! A very good read.

[Mary Wallan · Rating 2 out of 5]

All-Bright Court follows, in brief snippets, several southern black families who migrated north to work in an up-state New York steel mill.

Set in the 1950s - 1970s, the book begins hopefully, with the characters optimistic about a better life away from the Jim Crow South. All-Bright Court, the rundown neighborhood for black steel workers, has a spirit of neighborliness, despite the poverty of its residents.

We witness changing times through the eyes of All-Bright Court. The characters run up against every social issue of the times, from lack of education and opportunity to the Vietnam War, drug addiction to race riots, hazardous work sites to union busting. The residents are buffeted by all these things and more. But the way out is also harrowing. When a promising student obtains a scholarship to private school, his parents want him to go but warn him not to expect fair treatment in a white world. To depart from the ways of All-Bright Court means alienation from the only community he knows.

The tone of the book is depressing because the odds are so stacked against the families of All-Bright Court. In the end, we see that the ties are tested, but holding, just barely.

While a very readable book, the various storyline threads are a bit predictable, making the overall impact somewhat superficial.

[Jasmine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Had to read this for my English class and I’m really surprised this book isn’t more popular or well known. It’s just as good if not much better than a lot of books I had to read in highschool. The way it shows the civil right movement and the great migration from a black working class perspective was really good. This book has a lot to say and I think truly captures the moment in time it was written in, but also showing how many issues and conversations in the black community have and are ongoing.

My personal favorite part of this book was how it contrasted the characters lives and own desire from the societal pressures and systems of racism, capitalism and sexism and shows the conflict between it.

Overall really good book that I definitely will have to reread for a better deeper understanding.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a bit overly explain-y at times - it's not at all surprising that the author writes American Girl books, the way she lays out the facts of what was happening in the places and times she's writing about. It's also full of heartbreaking moments and profound sentences; the way she shows things coming full circle from Samuel's youth to his son's coming of age especially.

[Lbball27 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was on my shelf for too long. Thank goodness I finally picked it up. A recommendation many moons ago from my son. Beautiful writing! A story with amazing depth and heartbreak and memorable characters. " In her eyes,mixed right in with the blemishes rose color, was a question she had been formulating even in her days of invisibility... "

[reneeNaDaCherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explains some very interesting times in history during the 1950s. Many migrating families from the Jim Crow South are surviving but still barely thriving in the working-class neighborhoods up North.

All-Bright Court: A Novel is my first time reading a story by author Connie Rose Porter. I will probably read more of her work in the future.


Read 10/13/2025.

[eugenia benn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay

I enjoyed this book but I am very disappointed in the way it ended. If there is not a sequel to this book it was a complete waste. Too much was left out at the end.I have to imagine that both the father and the son died in the storm.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

(FROM JACKET)To the black residents of the housing project known as All-Bright Court, their new home in the shadow of a steel mill up north represents everything they had dreamed of in the cotton fields down south-jobs, freedom, a future. With unsentimental compassion, Connie Porter's remarkable debut novel traces the lives of the Court's inhabitants over twenty years, as the bright promise of the 1960s kindles and then dims the dreams of black America.

At the heart of this collective portrait of a community is the Taylor family: Sam, Mary Kate, and their five children. For the Taylors, this is a time of tremendous optimism. Sam eats alongside his white coworkers at the local diner after his shift in the mill's inferno. His wife labors to keep children and home decent, and the oldest boy, Mikey, shows promise at school. The door to the white world seems to be opening.

But time fades optimism as it fades the Court's bright colors. The steel industry falters, men lose their jobs, and women find consolation only in each other's kitchens. Mikey Taylor learns to distrust hope.

The miracle of this heartbreaking story is its unerring lyricism and warmth in the face of such tragic disappointment. Illuminating a world bound by margins of haunting beauty and devastating reality, "All-Bright Court" unearths the dignity, faith, and humor that enable people to endure.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was leveled by this book. It provided a very intimate view of what pain is wrought by lack of privilege, in this case a lack shared by members of the largely African American community near Buffalo during the 60s. Although some stories are excruciatingly sad, such as the interwoven stories of Venita and Clotel. Truly, I had at times to put the book down and recover. Yet, others are uplifting such as the final saga of Mikey and Samuel. This novel is a series of stories about the residents of this community. The author would introduce a character in the context of a particular story and then in some cases, return to that character much later in the novel. I found it required me to go back and refresh my memory about him or her. To me, more effective would have been fewer characters with greater in-depth presentation of each. Oh well: At times I have the same criticism of Dickens! After reading the book, I was surprised and delighted to see that this author is a contributor to the much more sanguinely toned American Girl series.

[Ronald Wise · Rating 3 out of 5]

This novel came to my reading list from Nancy Pearl's Book Lust recommendations named "African American Fiction: She Say", a list of fiction by Black women. All-Bright Court is a housing development in Buffalo, New York, originally built for the steel mill employees. It eventually became a run-down slum where Black employees and their families were then allowed to live. Porter reveals just enough about her characters, that this reader felt confident in guessing their true motivations. For me it was a revealing portrayal of life during the last half of the 20th century in poverty-stricken northern urban neighborhoods, inhabited by the descendants of African-Americans who had migrated from the South for a better life.

[Think-On-It]

If you'd like to know what I thought of this book, please contact me directly and I'd be happy to discuss it with you.

All the best,

- TB

[Brooklyn Ramey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was GAS