Southside

The retail section had two divisions - the southside and the northside - with Grafton Street being the main shopping street of the southside, and Henry Street and Moore Street the flagships of the northside.

While certain details indicate that this is a black neighborhood up north in a Michigan city, quite possibly Detroit as some have guessed, Morrison is deliberately not specific, allowing us to imagine that the "Southside" in her story could be any of a number of southsides created by the Negro migrations, including the southsides we readers may have lived in.

What is apparently most galling to everyone not directly involved in the dirty fight on the southside of the Perfume River is that rattyass NVA flag still flying defiantly over the Citadel on the northside.