Drawn by employment opportunities in wartime industries, between 10,000 and 12,000 African American people left the south for East St. Louis, Illinois in 1916 and 1917 as part of the Great Migration.

Upon finding his houseboat and remorseful wife abandoned by Paltrow on the East St. Louis waterfront on Christmas Day, however, Pillsbury threw a party on that very houseboat to celebrate their ...