On the Front Porch, Black Life in Full View

A childhood memory with my siblings is playing Jack's on the bottom steps of the front porch. I also learn the joy and peace of gardening from my grandmother. Our porch during the spring and summer was always colorful, and the back yard during the summmer had a vegetables garden.

What a refreshing, humane piece. Makes me want to go out to my porch and sit on the porch swing in the darkness just to think about it. Thank you.

Reminds me of the so-called “Porch Scale” of trauma patients seen at Detroit Receiving Hospital - informal system of classification to summarize how serious a new admit’s injuries were -a “porch 1” was a fall with a sprained ankle or similar; a “porch 2” was a broken bone; a “porch 3” involved a spinal cord or brain injury, and “porch 4” = dead. Big gorgeous homes but not without hazard. We helped a lot of people after their porch debacles.

I'm 64. In the neighborhood I grew up in, almost everyone had a front porch. It's where the milkman placed our milk and other dairy products in the silver box outside our door. Where my siblings and I played board games on rainy days; where we chatted with neighbors passing by; and where my sister and I (whose bedroom was above it) drifted contentedly off to sleep in the summer, listening to our parents' voices float quietly upward.

Front porches aren't limited to urban neighborhoods. I grew up in a small town in northern Illinois. As others have pointed out, front porches, screened or not, were the place to be on summer evenings before air conditioning, preferably with a porch swing.

I live in a neighborhood of homes mostly built before the advent of a/c and swamp coolers (the later works for cooling in dry climates). My house is from 1913. Most of the homes have large front porches. It seems like since the inside of homes have become comfortable year round (admittedly long before I was born) most people don't really use their front porches any more. My family on the other hand spends time there with regularity. There is a great view of the park. It baffles me no one else on our block seems to do the same with their front porches. I love our front porch. A good sized front porch was one of things we looked for when we were house hunting.

The architectural detail and the social ramifications go well back into West African village culture. I have long contended that one of great injustices to the Black community was the “urban renewal” programs of the 50s and 60s where individual private housing (with porches) were bulldozed and replaced with stark row houses or high-rise housing projects isolated residents from the open interaction afforded by the porch culture. A great example of how this all works is Spike Lee’s Do the right thing where almost the whole story line is portrayed on the street or the door steps...a scene so terribly foreign from that of our typical suburban isolation where most folks don’t even know their neighbors.

Ah, the front porch. My parents were strolling through the neighborhood after a visit to the beach when they saw our family's future home for sale. With wet hair and sandy feet, they were drawn to the porch swing and enjoyed it as the open house progressed. I imagine very serious people using the porch as a way to get into the house, as my parents shared smiles and laughter. Maybe there was a wet towel draped over the back of the swing--my dad shirtless and my mom still in her bikini--when my dad jumped up and, barefoot, bounded inside to let the broker know he'd be back later with a check. Years later I remember my sister and her friends accidentally breaking the swing; it was the first time I'd ever lied to my parents, since obviously I told them an elephant had sat on it. Later than that, I furtively drove my tiny hatchback right up the sidewalk to pack the car before making my first real move cross country; I followed a job and my future husband, and I bawled as I pulled the car away. My parents waved from the porch. Now my husband and I live in the house with the porch and the swing. We bounce our son on the swing in the warm weather, and watch him press his face to the window in the winter as birds eagerly attack our feeders. We drink in the breeze and lightning bugs and light rain on summer nights from the porch. We meet our neighbors and lots of good dogs who pass the porch. Family and friends congregate there. Thank you for reminding me of these things.

We raised our kids in a house with a front porch. All of the kids in the neighborhood convened there to gossip, organize kick the can games, conduct pretend weddings and play with their toys in a dry space while the NW rain fell. We've moved to a townhome with a front deck. The adults convene there to laugh, eat, talk about community projects.............local BSU students come and dine with us and receive encouragement, counsel, and love, and I sit out there to write. Front porches/decks inspire us, bring people together and provide spaces to love............and Lord knows we need all the love we can get right now.

I come from a long line of Porchers. Our family gatherings occurred on the huge porches at both sets of g'parent's houses. Most of our neighbors sat on their porches in the evenings. Somebody would tell a joke to the folks next door, who would pass it on. What a treat hearing the laughter travel down one side of the street and up the other. Later on, my partner and I conducted "porch church" on Sunday mornings - coffee, baked goods, the NYT, discussion, argument, sharing…

I’m pretty sure, if you were lucky enough to have a porch, the front porch has played a role in most people’s lives; regardless of race, religion, or ethnicity.

The front porch and sense of community are such a contrast to the suburbs of today, many with 2 car garages at the front. Homeowners enter their homes through the garage and never interact with neighbors.

Porchfest is an annual event in Ithaca where musicians play on porches, people meet their neighbors, new and old friends meet, some serve food and drinks. It was started in 2007 by two neighbors playing ukuleles and having a conversation. The first year there were 20 bands and by 2016 over 180 bands/artists performed. It now happens in over 60 neighborhoods and cities in North America (many inspired by Ithaca's). Here is a list from their website of other cities that hold Porchfests. http://www.porchfest.org/porchfests-elsewhere/

A front porch was one my "must haves" when looking for a home in Baltimore seven years ago. Sitting there over the past six years I have met so many neighbors, seen young people walking to or from school, and commented on all the dogs as they are taken for walks. I say hi to everyone. It is all a reminder of how special life can be.

This is Bev, Thomas' wife. I love this story. I grew up in Detroit and had the same affection for our front porch on Scotten Ave. where, after a long day at work, my father sat and read in the evenings as long as the weather held out. The young guys who were friends with or dating my sister and me would come to our front porch and talk for hours with my Dad. (I think they liked him more than us.) The front porch was the stage for family photos of French Canadian and Iowa relatives, the site for showing off every new baby and new Easter outfit. And the front steps were the location from which we kids watched the cars go by and played the game "Pretty or Ugly" or "Movie Star." I think that this cultural phenomenon is shared by many people, including most recently and spectacularly by the Arab people living in and around Dearborn. But that's another story.

When I was reading this piece, I thought about what my late father (he deceased in 2009 at the age of 99) told me about summer-evening storytelling on his family's front porch in Florence, South Carolina during Jim Crow. He was still a little boy (the year was probably 1914) when he heard this piece of family lore: The matriarch who ran things at that time told the family that there would be no more stories about "slavery days" on the porch. I'm wondering whether other African-American families made similar decisions and whether memories of our enslaved past were mediated by such decisions.

Growing up in a small, rural, Iowa town in the 50's and 60's, there were very specific front porch protocols. No one had air conditioning back then, so summer evenings were often the time when folks would be on their front porches or out for a stroll at the end of the day. Here's how it would work. If you were just passing by, you might call out a greeting from the sidewalk. The next step would be to come up the walk to the front steps and chat for a short while. But if a longer conversation was in order, you would be invited up the steps to sit on the porch for a time. But you had to be invited. Only family - or maybe the neighbors - would go up on the porch without an express invitation. This, or course, only applied to the adults. Us kids and our friends were in and out of each others homes all day, all summer long.

A heartwarming article! I grew up an hour north of Detroit, in Flint. We held similar memories about our porches and ways they brought neighbors together.

Loved this story and photos! A beautiful way to start my morning. I never really thought of it before, but our family spent its best time together in the summers on our front porch in Blue Ridge Summit, PA. Now my brother bought the house next door and he and his wife just hand-built their own beautiful porch. Passing it on to the next generation!

My favorite family photo has by grandfather and great grandfather and my mother at about age two sitting on the porch of my grandparents historic home (originally built in 1804) in Louisville, Kentucky. It would have been taken in about 1916. When I was seven we moved to Savannah Georgia to a house with a front porch. After that I never had one again until we bought our 1909 house in Concord, NH earlier this year. I love that front porch. It even has a swing!

When I lived in the south, I really enjoyed that most of the houses had porches. Even the ranch houses of the 50's and 60's had porches. You could sit outside and drink a cup of tea even if it was raining. I liked to garden and people would come by to look at my flowers. Complete strangers would stop their cars when they saw me on the porch and ask if they could look at my garden. It was great. I don't have a porch now. Not as many houses where I live now have them. If I ever move, I'll only look for a house with a porch. I like to drink my tea outside when it's raining.

What a wonderful start to the day. My daughter sent me the article as I’ve told her about my favorite memories from my childhood, most of which involved my grandmother’s porch. I was raised in Louisiana and our porch was the central gathering space for my grandmother and her in-laws who were all now without their spouses. Tea cakes, biscuits and extra strong hot coffee were served twice daily - morning and evening. The lessons I learned there matched anything I ever received in college. I miss those days and am forever grateful to have had them.

I think it's wonderful how my Italian-American culture, as well that of my neighbors' English-American, Irish-American, Korean-American, Dutch-American, and also African-American, enjoyed similar benefits through the front porch's role in our lives (especially before the days of air conditioning).

For 20 years, I lived in an apartment with wide views of NY harbor. When I sold it, I moved into a house with a porch. People ask me if I miss the view. I do not!

The "front porch" where I grew up was always our neighborhood's 'living room' where neighbors would stroll up and down our street, visiting each other, talking about the news of day and catching up.

It goes to a not so long ago time when to catch a breeze in summer's heat every home was built with a front porch. The height of bounty was a porch all around and wicker rockers shelling peas, pecans and butterbeans. Day dream softly and you can remember the soft nights with stars that lit your conversations, dreams and memories. And don't forget the cold fried chicken consumed there with relish and much smacking. I have the world's smallest kitchen but to expand I would need to give up my front porch. Never. And I find that men of all ages, races are the ones who admire and sit for a spell. And whoppers do be told but outside the house it is alright.

Just looked at the opening photo and knew it had to be the Detroit of my childhood. I live in a lovely home in Texas but no front porch to really sit on (and no visiting neighbors unless I go first). I always enjoy going back to the "D"!

As others have said, this article is a beautiful way to start the day. I was blessed to grow up in the 1950's and early 1960's with not one, but two porches. My family lived in a two family house in Cleveland, Ohio. We moved to East 132nd Street in Mount Pleasant in 1953 when I was six. I remember when my Aunt LaRue and Uncle Bill,who lived on the second floor, bought beautiful green and white canvas awnings for both the first and second floor porches. Many of my favorite childhood memories took place on those porches. My twin sister and I read and played jacks and other games on the front steps. Summer evenings were the best. Sometimes we sat listening to the grown ups talk after running around catching fireflies in the yard. Sometimes we sat on the first floor and sometimes on the second floor porch getting a bird's eye view of our street. Swinging back and forth on the glider was so much fun. Our grandmother had to warn us not to break it. I don't remember eating much on the front porch but I do remember homemade lemonade and also the baseball game playing on the radio hour after hour. Everyone in our family was from down South (Dublin, Georgia) except my sister and me. My family knew all of our neighbors who were also Black transplanted Southerners. These remain the best years of my life and the porches embody what was wonderful about that time.

I grew up with a front porch, had good night kisses on that front porch in high school and prom pictures also. My father would help me pack up the car if I put my things on the front porch when I left for college and subsequent visits home after I grew up and had a home on my own . I made a point of adding a swing to my current home’s front porch and make a point of having down time on the swing with my four year old son as we watch the world pass by .

Houses in my neighborhood were the full width of the house and deep enough for a glider and chairs. On summer evenings, long before air conditioning, porches were alive with families seeking the coolest place to relax and socialize. Some of my dearest memories are of gatherings with neighbors on porches where, armed with lit punk sticks to repel mosquitoes, we gossiped and told ghost stories.

I love the stories told here and couldn't help but note that all the tellers are women. Strong women, nurturing women, the women who glue the families and neighborhoods and future together. Hope the tradition continues wherever it can.

My wife and I built our "forever home" and, 4 months ago, moved into a home with porches front and back. The front looks out over our front "yard," nearly and acre between the house and road that will become, 9 or 10 months out of the year, our garden. The back porch faces south so the sun can warm it in the winter and the scene is studded with a huge pecan, and elm with 4 trunks any of which is a tree in itself, and 4 oaks that can't be a day less than 300 years old. I had my heart set on a pier-and-beam foundation until our builder advised me the piers alone would cost more than foreign luxury car, and then the beams and subfloor would push the price even higher. There went my hopes for a porch 4 or 5 or 6 steps off the ground. We compromised by building up the pad for the concrete slab and 2 steps to the porch level. Porches let you experience thunderstorms more intimately, without getting soaking wet. A porch encourages interactions and conversation with family and friends in ways a closed room does not and, perhaps, cannot. It's just not possible to wave to friends passing by when a window frames the view. The panorama seen from the porch vs. the window snapshot is the difference between seeing a movie like "Jeremiah Johnson" in Cinemascope in the theater and watching it on a 19" Sylvania console TV. Porches should be mandatory.

Until I read this article I didn't know how much I missed the front porch! None of the houses I've lived in since childhood have had a front porch, but growing up we had a front porch. Houses with substantial front porches just look more gracious and welcoming to me. Just yesterday I was wondering if we could add a front porch to our present house. Now I know why I want one.

I now have a front porch, but it is too far from human commerce. My other homes had a back deck, like everyone else the those neighborhoods, and we all socialized outdoors in our private compartments. Something was lost. It took years to recognize neighbors -- I had to encounter them when they happened to park outside of their garages in good weather. So many people are obsessed with privacy and fearful of people -- unless it is online.

Growing up in the 1950s in the Bronx we had the stoop which served the same function particularly in the summer. Wonderful piece and I would recommend Reynolds Price book "On the Front Porch."

I too wonder why I open to the NYT as part of my morning ritual. So much of the news is discouraging. I like the human interest stories, this is one of them. I have owned three homes over the past 40 years, each with front porches. Porches are a necessity for a home, a place for a chair & a swing, for watching the world and pondering. Neighbors stop by or wave hello, the beauty of living in community.

I live in a rural area with a front porch that overlooks mother nature. I have always loved the sense of community that emanates from the lines of porches of city residences and now I understand what i have been missing. Thank you for bringing those porches alive!

Thank you for this glimpse into the lives of others.

African architecture principles were brought to the New World by free and enslaved Africans. The first Muslims in the Americas were Africans. These African artistic cultural icons were especially prevalent in the Southeast and Southwest USA that mirrored Africa. African cultural traditions pervade art, language, agriculture, clothing, cuisine, music and faith. Both material and spiritual black culture lives. But blacks in America are not the people who left Africa and the Africa that they left no longer exists. Unlike Teresa Heinz Kerry and Barack Hussein Obama, most Africans in America have never been to Africa and have no idea who, what and when their black ancestors came from. For most blacks being African American is not like being European American. Africans were property. They were not immigrants.

My mother lived in many apartments. No front porches, but many stoops. We did stoop sitting. Children playing, people stopping by to chat, if the apartment was big enough maybe opening the door to the foyer. Pleasant memories.

In my neighborhood about a third of the homes have front porches. Some are used, some aren't. We are inveterate front-porch-sitters. Weekends from April-September we eat both breakfast and lunch on the front porch, as well as afternoon drinks and appetizers. I read on the porch, watch bike-racing on the laptop, entertain friends and neighbors, you name it. We have a lovely back deck, but we prefer the front porch for the social aspect of it. It's nice to be a part of the neighborhood. We've met many of our neighbors and people who walk through our neighborhood just by sitting on the front porch. It's funny to realize how much of our social life revolves around that porch. We have a front-yard vegetable garden, and when people walk by and admire it, they are often moved to say hello and talk gardening when they see us on the porch. I should add - we are white and in a white neighborhood!

I grew up in suburban New Orleans. Although we did not have a sitting porch, my parents pulled out the folding chairs and sat on the walkway next to the garage door. From there, parents talked while watching kids play, occasionally shooing them away during "adult" conversations. Post hurricane, when the electricity was out, neighbors gathered there to escape the heat of the inside. Those are good memories. And don't forget the stoops of the inner city French Quarter homes. Good memories.

This is an excellent piece on community building from the ground up. Coffee and pound cake! Tell me when and I will be over.

Grew up in Chicago where the front porch was the center of activity. Moved to Detroit and it's still my ballast. If you wish to get started writing your memoir for your loved ones, your memories of what happened and who came to your front porch is a great way to start.

Beautiful photo essay. My favorite picture is the Carsons. Great way to start the day!

Thank you for reminding me that there are good news stories out there in our country. Just reading this made me feel terrific and renewed about the resilience of our power as community, of which the front porch has played a huge roll. Thanks again

When I open my computer each morning to read the "news," I prepare myself for the inevitable negative emotions, and wonder why I start my day this way. But this article gave me a good feeling inside, made me hopeful. Front porches, neighbors, community. Maybe we should consider front porches as part of the answer to our many problems. Front porches bring us together. It seems so much social media tears us apart.

Ms Harris is a a beautiful lesson in what can be born out of loss and sorrow

So many housing developments these days feature large backyards and that is where a family’s outdoor life is often centered. Yards, particularly those with fences, foster insulation from the rest of a community. The beauty if the front porch is that it is a window to the larger world. My little front porch enables me to interact with strangers walking their dogs, reflect on what’s happening on my block and is the perfect place to read a book, enjoy a glass of wine and serves as an open invitation to my neighbors to join me. I’ll even bundle up in cold weather to enjoy my porch.

I was born in Detroit and lived there until age 10. Reading about these porches gave me such nostalgia, I know I'll go back for a visit and take it upon myself to take a bicycle tour of people on porches, to fill in the decades of history unknown to me. For sure the porch is an institution which educates, socializes and trains people about the value of community. We need this especially in these times of broken society.

I am not African-American, but may I share my porch story? I am from Buffalo and our house had a porch. My father died when I was a child and he suffered his illness at home and died there. My parents had different Jewish backgrounds, with my mother more Conservative and kosher, and my father Reform and not, and they agreed when they married that although my father could eat whatever he wanted outside, there would be no treyf in the house. When my father was dying, my grandmother asked if she could bring over his favorite food, which was lobster. My mother said Yes, of course, and she did, in an enormous pot, but he ate it outside, on the porch.

I love these stories, strong, sad and sweet and full of history I didn't realize. I didn't grow up with a front porch for sitting, but when I searched for my first house on my own in my 50's, I said it had to have a front porch for sitting. Someone said, "You can't buy a house for the porch". I said, "Watch me".

How I wish I had a porch. Your vivid writing made it so. Keep the stories flowing.

This is beautiful writing. I would like to read another article about Avalon Village!