Richard Prince’s Book Notes™: 15 from Journalists
The Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend seems an appropriate time to report on nonfiction books by or about black journalists. They range from the personal to the historical to those that blend both. Some offer tart opinion; others fresh research and reporting. To paraphrase the advice King gave to street sweepers, some of us are striving to practice the craft as Michelangelo painted, Beethoven played music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. We want the hosts of heaven and earth to pause to say, “Here lived a great journalist who did his job well.”
Herb Boyd
|
|
|
|
Herb Boyd, author, reporter for the New York Amsterdam News and teacher of African and African American history at the College of New Rochelle in New York, has “Pound for Pound: A Biography of Sugar Ray Robinson,” with Ray Robinson II, the boxer’s son (Amistad, $24.95, hardcover; $14.95, paper).
Robinson was the greatest boxer America had seen since Joe Louis, as the cover flap says. “Far too often, Sugar was seen as merely a boxer and a song and dance man,” Boyd told Journal-isms, “but there are several riveting political moments in the book where Sugar expressed his outrage at segregation and discrimination, particularly when touring the South and in the Army.” Journalists of color “should also know the extent to which he and Joe Louis (his lifelong friend) provided funds for charitable organizations. They were also major fundraisers for the U.S. government during the war years, and it’s terribly ironic that the government cut them no slack when the IRS put liens on their income from bouts. . . . These are a few things our colleagues should know about the man many boxing authorities still consider ‘pound for pound’ the greatest fighter of them all.”
Howard Bryant
Howard Bryant, a sportswriter for the Washington Post, offers “Juicing the Game: Drugs, Power, and the Fight for the Soul of Major League Baseball” (Viking, $24.95).
|
|
|
|
Bryant wrote this well-received book while a sports columnist at the Boston Herald. It is “the definitive book on baseball’s steroid scandal,” Gene Sapakoff said in the Post and Courier of Charleston, S.C., and it is among 10 candidates for the 2005 Casey award, presented by Spitball: The Literary Baseball Magazine to its best baseball book of the year. His “Shut Out: A Story of Race and Baseball in Boston” won in 2002.
“In an exhaustive assessment of the national pastime’s steroid scandal, he convincingly implicates the commissioner of baseball, the corporation of Major League Baseball, players, union leaders, television networks, Congress, fans and members of his own profession in the increased use of steroids and ‘performance enhancing drugs’ across the decade that followed the 1994 cancellation of the World Series,” Larry Moffi said in the Washington Post. Bryant writes, “Most baseball reporters did not have the background to know just how these supplements affected the body, yet most immediately rejected the idea of their potency.” He says Ken Caminiti, the National League’s Most Valuable Player, quite possibly ingested steroids right in front of a reporter.
Thulani Davis
Thulani Davis, novelist, playwright, screenwriter and former Village Voice staff writer, has “My Confederate Kinfolk: A Twenty-First Century Freedwoman Discovers Her Roots” (Basic Civitas, $25).
|
|
|
|
As she wrote in a 2003 piece in the Village Voice that anticipated this book, Davis discovered family members who fought with the Confederates. “Being a journalist showed me what to look for when doing the research and gave me the dispassion to look at it as a story that was not purely personal,” she told Journal-isms. The book “is also just a ground level view of how the lives of African Americans were impacted by the lives, decisions, actions of slaveholders.
“I think it is excellent material to have as background for viewing the implications of the 2000 & 2004 elections, and the Katrina disaster,” Davis continued. “I learned a lot about what happened to displaced African Americans 100 years ago, sleeping in abandoned factories, under bridges, etc. right after the Civil War. It’s all too familiar. And the experience of digging up the material made me even more impressed with how dearly our forebears paid for the right to vote.”
Betty DeRamus
Betty DeRamus, columnist for the Detroit News, has “Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories from the Underground Railroad” (Atria Books, $25, hardcover; $14, paper)
|
|
|
|
“The book is mostly about enslaved and free black people who went to extraordinary lengths to stay together, fighting bloodhounds, bounty hunters, wolves, mobs and traitors,” DeRamus said in the press material. “I’m talking about people like John Little, who carried his wife to freedom, and Joseph Antoine, a free black man who became a slave to stay with his wife, and James Smith, who searched for his enslaved family for 17 years. Many African Americans don’t want to confront this part of American history. It’s too drenched in pain.
“I wanted to write a book about slavery that would stress triumph as well as tragedy, achievement as well as suffering and love in a time of hate. I wanted young African Americans, in particular, to understand that our slave ancestors did far more than transform scraps of tossed-away food into delicacies and turn field hollers and chants into powerful music.”
“Forbidden Fruit” was named one of Black Issues Book Review’s “best history books” of 2005.
Bob Herbert
Bob Herbert, op-ed columnist for the New York Times, offers “Promises Betrayed: Waking Up from the American Dream” (Times Books, $26), a collection of his columns.
|
|
|
|
“A reporter making the rounds will spend an inordinate amount of time trespassing in the precincts that were so well understood by the old blues masters, the places ravaged by hypocrisy and double-dealing, hatred and murder, acts of terror and endless war,” Herbert writes in the introduction. “These are the places where the suffering occurs and that tell us the most about the times in which we live. . . . We’ve been attacked from without, but the greater danger to the essence of America is within. There’s a fire in the basement of the United States and we’re behaving as if we cannot even smell the smoke.”
Included in the collection are Herbert’s columns on Tulia, Texas, where in 1999 more than 10 percent of the town’s black population was arrested in a drug sting, along with a few whites, based on evidence fabricated by a racist cop. Only after lawsuits by the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and media coverage that included Herbert’s columns did the innocence of those arrested come to light. Texas Gov. Rick Perry granted full pardons to those wrongfully convicted.
Joyce King
|
|
|
|
Joyce King, a broadcaster for 20 years, has written “Growing Up Southern: White Men I Met Along the Way” (Avenue Publishers, Dallas, $15, paper).
As reported in this space three years ago, King resigned from CBS Radio in Dallas in 1999 to write “Hate Crime: The Story of a Dragging in Jasper, Texas” (Pantheon).
“I like to describe GUS as being such an ‘ordinary’ story that it belongs to all of us, whether we grew up in the South or not,” King told Journal-isms. “I’m hearing from black women across the country who say things like, ‘That’s me on the cover.’ . . . I pay homage to a tormented half-white grandfather, and racially profile some of the white men in my life who need a little tough love, but also give kudos to some who’ve gotten it right.
“If there is a thesis for GUS, I would say evolution of little Negro girl to woman of color in America. If ever a person is going to be free, they must unpack the heavy racial baggage without discarding the legacy of race. I ask no one to forget, but to forgive and heal themselves. Sounds easy, huh? No, never.”
King says she is now in the job market.
Elliott Lewis
|
|
|
|
Elliott Lewis, a Washington-based freelance television reporter and a board member of the National Association of Black Journalists, has “Fade: My Journeys in Multiracial America” (Carroll & Graf, $25).
Lewis’ mother is the product of a dark-skinned African American father and a light-complexioned mother some took for Italian; his father is the son of a white woman and a self-identified black man. “I am not only ‘multiracial by birth,’ but ‘multiracial through life experience,’ he writes. “People often make snap judgments of anyone who says they’re biracial,” Lewis told Journal-isms. “Some people think we’re confused or we’re trying to escape being black. Others go to the opposite extreme and think we’re exotic and the wave of the future. Neither view captures our reality.
“When I looked at other books that were out there on the topic, I found they generally fell into three categories — memoirs that gave readers only one family’s story, books that offered a series of vignettes or essays from a variety of people but often without any historical or psychological perspective, and academic works that were well-intentioned but overloaded with a lot of scholarly jargon. ‘Fade’ explores growing up biracial in the post-civil rights era in a way that connects the dots between individual life experiences and the racial identities we claim. I’ve weaved my own journey in this area with interviews of dozens of other multiracial people of various combinations to give readers a more well-rounded view of the challenges multiracial people face. ‘Fade’ also explores the arguments put forth concerning formal recognition of multiracial people on the U.S. census.”
Greg Morrison and Yanick Rice Lamb
|
|
|
|
Greg Morrison and Yanick Rice Lamb have produced “Rise and Fly: Tall Tales and Mostly True Rules of Bid Whist” (Three Rivers Press, $12, paper).
The authors “are well-known journalists who have played bid whist as partners on and off for more than a decade,” this fun-to-read, 160-page volume explains. “They’ve seen it all — the good, the bad, and the ugly — from the enduring friendships formed at the card table to the butcher knives placed strategically nearby as playful warnings against screwups. Somehow, they’ve lived to tell the tale.” Included are recipes for snacks to accompany the card-game sessions, the game’s history, anecdotes from whist fanatics (including journalists) and advice to spectators. One chapter discusses a related game, spades, which “has been called baby bid because it serves as a primer to whist.”
Morrison is news director of cable’s Black Family Channel and Lamb, who formerly edited BET Weekend and Heart & Soul magazines, teaches journalism at Howard University. She co-wrote “Born to Win,” a biography of tennis great Althea Gibson. Morrison discussed “Rise and Fly” in December on National Public Radio’s “News and Notes” with Ed Gordon.
Jill Nelson
|
|
|
|
Jill Nelson, author and activist journalist, wrote “Finding Martha’s Vineyard: African Americans at Home on an Island” (Doubleday, $27.50).
“Why should journalists read it? It’s history, memoir, oral history, 75 photos, recipes, and tells the story of the AA presence on MV from slavery until now. It is a book about our unique yearning of a home place, and the oddity of so many AA’s having found it on this small island in the Atlantic Ocean,” Nelson told Journal-isms via e-mail. She is perhaps best known among journalists for 1993’s “Volunteer Slavery,” which includes a caustic account of her time at the Washington Post,
Black Issues Book Review gave “Finding Martha’s Vineyard” its ” ‘We’re Right at Home, Here’ Award.”
“Nelson’s deep understanding of the island’s structure gives her the confidence to let others tell its story,” Andrea Clurfeld wrote in New Jersey’s Asbury Park Press. “Those who contribute to the oral history include Bill Clinton’s friend and confidante Vernon Jordan; Yale law school professor Stephen Carter; gallery owner Zita Cousens; the three now-octogenarian Dowdell sisters; attorney Tonya Lewis Lee and her filmmaker-husband Spike Lee; and Doris Pope Jackson, a descendant of the Shearer family, who owned and operated a renowned inn frequented by black Americans.
“With sources like these, the story’s got to be remarkable — and it is.”
Lonnae O’Neal Parker
|
|
|
|
Lonnae O’Neal Parker, a Style section writer at the Washington Post, offers “I’m Every Woman: Remixed Stories of Marriage, Motherhood, and Work” (Amistad, $24.95), a warm and personal tale of being a black working mother that recalls, in generous helpings, how African Americans have managed to both work and be mothers throughout history.
Her friend, Post columnist Donna Britt, introduced Parker at an October celebration of the book’s publication. “It’s an engagingly written exploration of black women’s adventures with motherhood, adventures and sexuality,” Britt told Journal-isms. “A lot of books have explored the ‘mommy wars’ and the difficulties and challenges of parenting from a mainstream perspective. Lonnae’s voice is very distinctly feminine and African American. I’m a journalist of color and I’m a mother, and basically, it’s about balance. I don’t know anybody who does what we do who doesn’t try to balance.” The book “makes you laugh and think that the craziness of your life is OK. . . . Journalists will be taken with the stylishnessness of the language,” Britt said, but the book “will appeal to everybody.”
Scott Poulson-Bryant
|
|
|
|
Scott Poulson-Bryant, a founding editor of Vibe magazine, former columnist at Spin and currently senior editor at the quarterly fashion/lifestyle magazine America, has “Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America” (Doubleday, $22.95).
The title is a double-entendre, referring also to the fact that “black men were literally hung from trees, often for the supposed threat of their sexual potency,” in the words of the press material. The book was declared “well-written and thought-provoking” by author E. Lynn Harris in the New York Times, but author Quinn Eli, writing in the Raleigh News & Observer, called it “a big mess of a book, a collection of off-handed and glib observations masquerading as social commentary. . . full of New York City anecdotes and conspicuous name-dropping.”
Jenice Armstrong wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News that the heterosexual Poulson-Bryant “was warned not to write the book by those who believed he was exploiting a racial stereotype and also by others who didn’t want the myth of the hypersexualized black man debunked,” and “said what he learned most from writing ‘Hung,’ was how tightly some black men seemed to hang onto the ‘strong black lover’ stereotype. ‘Some people think we black men hang onto this stereotype because we lack power,’ he said. They think, “I don’t have political power or financial power, but I do have sexual power. There’s a power to being considered the best lover in the room.'”
Poulson-Bryant keeps readers abreast of the book’s progress on his blog.
Barbara A. Reynolds
The Rev. Dr. Barbara A. Reynolds has “Out of Hell and Living Well: Healing from the Inside Out” (Xulon Press, $23.99, hardcover; $13.99, paperback).
|
|
|
|
As reported here last year, Reynolds, a veteran-journalist-turned-minister, was in the news business long enough to have been a pioneer — an unwanted pioneer, according to this autobiography.
The veteran of the Chicago Tribune and USA Today writes, for example, about arriving in Washington in 1977 as the first African American journalist in the Tribune’s Washington bureau. “For that bit of historical distinction, I was excoriated daily,” she wrote. “I was the only black journalist among 12 white men, all of whom treated me with disdain for even thinking I should sit in the same office with them.”
Reynolds uses the book to chronicle her transformation from sinner journalist to cleric, discussing abortions she has had, abuse she suffered and the virtues of perseverance.
She also details her 1996 firing from USA Today as columnist and editorial writer.
Irwin Thompson
|
|
|
|
Irwin Thompson, a senior staff photographer at the Dallas Morning News, is a major contributor to “Eyes of the Storm, ” Hurricanes Katrina and Rita: The Photographic Study (Taylor Trade Publishing, paperback, $19.95), a book chronicling the work of photographers at the Dallas Morning News during the devastation of August and September. It is edited by William Snyder, the paper’s director of photography. White journalists provide the commentary, but the images, which are striking, are overwhelmingly of African Americans.
Thompson is a Louisiana native who had worked as a staff photographer for the New Orleans Times-Picayune before joining the Dallas Morning News in 1990. He was one of the first to arrive in New Orleans, expecting to stay a few days, Nekoro Gomes wrote this week in Editor & Publisher.
“Thompson took many pictures of hurricane survivors wading through flooded intersections, being evacuated from rooftops, and standing uneasily on line for ready-made meals. Thompson’s favorite picture, however, is the simple but poignant image of the feet of 21-year old Jeremiah Ward, who made makeshift sandals out of rubber bands and empty cigar boxes: ‘That picture just spoke volumes on the situation of the evacuees and what they did to improvise,'” Thompson was quoted as saying.
“Soon after, when Hurricane Rita made landfall in Thompson’s birthplace of Lake Charles, La., Thompson found himself performing the same informal relief efforts for family members,” Gomes wrote.
Vernon Byrne, another African American photographer at the News, also contributed, mostly focusing on Hurricane Rita.
Profits from the book go to charities that served the needs of the hurricane survivors, the News’ Michael J. Brown, online business development manager, told Journal-isms.
Jason Whitlock
|
|
|
|
Jason Whitlock, sports columnist at the Kansas City Star, has “Love Him, Hate Him: Ten Years of Sports, Passion and Kansas City” (Kansas City Star Books, $24.95).
The Kansas City Star has assembled a collection of columns by Whitlock, writer for the Star since 1994 and contributor to ESPN.com’s Page 2. He also appears on a couple of ESPN television shows and hosts a daily sports talk radio show in Kansas City.
Whitlock played on the offensive line while a student at Ball State University, majoring in journalism. “Halfway through my freshman year,” Whitlock writes in introducing the book, “when a friend suggested that I switch my major to journalism, I told myself that I wanted to be like Mike — Royko, not Jordan. I wanted to write an agenda-free, personal column. . . . I wanted to write a column that celebrated a city’s victories and critically analyzed a city’s failures. I wanted to make people laugh and cry. I wanted to be a slave to common sense, not a slave to a particular ideology. I wanted to write my version of the truth.”
He writes for the Star four times a week. The book had an initial printing of 3,500 and is being sold mostly through the newspaper, though it is in area bookstores and listed on Amazon.com, said Doug Weaver, who oversees the Star’s books department, among other duties.
Ralph Wiley
|
|
|
|
The work of the late Ralph Wiley is collected in “Classic Wiley: A Lifetime of Punchers, Players, Punks & Prophets” (ESPN Books, $24.95)
The author and sports columnist died in June 2004. This collection is a tribute to him by ESPN, which ran his columns on ESPN.com. Its release was accompanied by an ESPN television documentary, “Classic Wiley.” The book, which had a print run of 10,000, features a foreword by sports broadcaster Bob Costas and introduction by Washington Post columnist Michael Wilbon.
Jerome Solomon wrote in the Boston Globe, “For those unfamiliar with Wiley’s pen, and particularly those who knew him only from his many television appearances, ‘Classic Wiley’ should whet your appetite while making you laugh, grit your teeth, and maybe even talk back to the words on the page. You’ll be wanting more.”
MESSAGE BOARDS: Feel free to post a comment on this subject and view those from others.
Next week: Books of interest not by black journalists.
