Richard Prince’s Book Notes™: Holiday Offerings
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Our latest list of nonfiction books by journalists of color or those of special interest to them — part three of three.
The first installment, “Get Down With the Legends!,” was published last week. The second, “Challenging ’45’ and Proudly Telling the Story,” appeared this week.
Todd Steven Burroughs
Todd Steven Burroughs, a black media historian, independent researcher and writer based in Newark, N.J., has “Warrior Princess: A People’s History of Ida B. Wells” (Diasporic Africa Press; $9.99 paper; $7.99 Kindle; free online [PDF]).
Burroughs notes that “Ida B. Wells-Barnett has gone from mid-20th century Africana Studies obscurity to a major 21st Century subject in Women’s Studies and the history of Black American media.”
He writes, “This work is not a work of biography as much as . . . an ideological portrait from an attempted Black feminist perspective. It’s a book that discusses the ideas and institutions around Ida B. Wells-Barnett as she spent her life in teaching, journalism, anti-lynching campaigns, and civil rights and political organizing.
“It discusses how she balanced white racism of both genders, and sexism from Black male leaders. It attempts to show how one Black woman created and maintained her selfhood amidst such challenges.
“This book is for Black women activists of the 21st century — those who are committed to showing that Black lives have always mattered most to them. It is for the young Black women who have spearheaded major protests and demonstrations during the presidencies of both Barack Obama, a Black Democrat, and Donald Trump, a white Republican. I want the struggles within this book to resonate with them. . . .”
Issac J. Bailey
Isaac J. Bailey, who spent 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist for the Sun News in Myrtle Beach, S.C., was a Nieman fellow at Harvard University and also an interim member of the editorial board of the Charlotte Observer, has “My Brother Moochie: Regaining Dignity in the Face of Crime, Poverty, and Racism in the American South” (Other Press, $25.95 hardcover; $13.99 ebook).
Bailey’s story “explores the fallout that his large, black South Carolina family experienced after his oldest brother, Herbert, nicknamed Moochie, received a life sentence for murdering a white man in 1982,” John Eligon wrote in the New York Times. “More than a recounting of the woes of dealing with the justice system in the face of poverty and racism, this searching memoir forces readers to confront a pointed question: Can we see the humanity in black people who have done bad things?”
Eligon also wrote, “As much as he knows that his brothers are more than their worst acts, ‘too often I’ve had to fight the tendency to hate them,’ he writes. He describes being so angry after the girlfriend of his youngest brother, Jordan, was killed in a drive-by shooting intended for Jordan himself, that he drove his brother to the police station, demanding that he tell the cops everything he knew.’
” ‘At that moment, I didn’t care about questionable police tactics, wanted no part of lectures about young black men being railroaded or about the school-to-prison pipeline or talk of justice at all,’ he writes.
“ ‘My Brother Moochie’ is most powerful in moments like these, when Bailey adds layers of complexity to the views on race reflected in his journalism. He knew some good white people in the South who would be there for him at a moment’s notice. Yet the rise of President Trump offered Bailey a sobering reminder that racism still has this country in a chokehold. He was confronted by racist sentiments from white people he thought were friends. Just because white people loved him, he learned, it did not mean that they loved black people. . . .”
Joseph Williams concluded in the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, “Ultimately, ‘My Brother Moochie’ is interesting, but it reads more like a collection of Bailey’s columns than a fluid autobiography. Still, Bailey argues, his book is at heart a lesson in self-love: If he doesn’t love his flawed brother, his broken relatives ‘and many other black families like ours … I can’t fully love myself. And I plan on loving myself fully.’ ”
- Issac J. Bailey, Politico Magazine: Why Didn’t My Drug-Affected Family Get Any Sympathy? (June 10)
Howard Bryant
Howard Bryant, a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN The Magazine, has “The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism” (Beacon Press, $26.95 hardcover; $16.99 ebook; $12.19 paper at Amazon, due Jan. 19; $22.61 audio CD at Amazon).
Robert Birnbaum summarizes in a Washington Post roundup of football books: “This is not strictly a football book but a larger exploration of the struggle and protest of black athletes in America. ESPN writer Howard Bryant traces a through line from the dissidence of Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Muhammad Ali, baseball player Curt Flood, Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos, Arthur Ashe, and Craig Hodges to the activism of Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid, LeBron James, Michael Bennett and Carmelo Anthony — a group he refers to as the Heritage. It’s an important story that also deals with the post-9/11 militarization of sports and post Ferguson black activist athletes.”
Bryant’s own words: “Black athletes are now awake and find themselves in a fight for their voice against a president who demands their obedience, threatens their livelihood, reminds them that even the ones who think they have ‘made it,’ haven’t. The president is emboldened by a post-9/11 sports industry that has commercialized nationalism through owners who now benefit by politicizing sports and fans who wear their replica jerseys and demand spectacular athletic performances — and political silence. . . .”
The reviewers got it.
Morgan Campbell, May 30 in the Toronto Star: “Publisher Beacon Press couldn’t have known the book would hit stores just as the NFL rule [forcing players on the field to stand during the pre-game anthem] propelled race, sports and nationalism back into the news cycle.
“That The Heritage so thoroughly deconstructs the current controversy highlights Bryant’s insight, foresight and strong writing. Bryant saw where trends were headed, and when they arrived, The Heritage was already there to help make sense of them.”
Brandon Tensley said in the Pacific Standard: “Bryant writes with the kind of vim, in turns darkly comic and serious, that pulls you from page to page. It’s a bracing analysis that brings clarity during a hazy season of ‘kneeling and blacklisting, of patriotism and heroes, some real, many more contrived.’ ”
Bill Littlefield added for WBUR-FM in Boston: “Lots of people watching the games probably take for granted the propaganda to which Bryant and some of the enlightened players object. But doing so runs counter to the recognition that the militarization of the culture has grim consequences. The acceptance of the worldview that defines questioning reckless policies — such as arming police departments with weapons of war — as unpatriotic discourages dissent. It also makes more likely —— and more deadly — the ongoing victimization of minority citizens by those allegedly protecting and serving all citizens.
“These days, to make connections like the ones Bryant makes is to risk being labeled treasonous. But to ignore the connections he painstakingly demonstrates and to contend that the business of the pro athlete is merely to entertain and enjoy the benefits of the job, that they should be content to be, as Bryant puts it, ‘greenwashed,’ is to endorse the diminished humanity of not only the athletes Bryant references, but all of the people who watch them. . . .”
Wil Haygood
Wil Haygood, a visiting distinguished professor in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University, Ohio, and a former journalist at the Boston Globe and Washington Post, has “Tigerland: 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing” (Knopf, $27.95 hardcover; $29.99 audio; $12.99 Kindle on Amazon).
“1968 and 1969 [meaning the 1968-69 school year]: Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy are assassinated,” begins the blurb for “Tigerland.” “Race relations are frayed like never before. Cities are aflame as demonstrations and riots proliferate. But in Columbus, Ohio, the Tigers of segregated East High School win the baseball and basketball championships, defeating bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state.”
Michael Kleber-Diggs wrote in September for the Star Tribune in Minneapolis, “In ‘Tigerland’ you’ll come to understand what it was like to be black in America in 1968. You’ll see the toll of racism as the students leave high school to make their way in a world aligned against them. You’ll come to know their motivations, what drove them, what called to them, how they imagined their futures and how things turned out.
“ ‘Tigerland’ maintains relevance today because it demands that we ask what, if anything, has been resolved. In 1968, high schools adopted policies against Afros; today, it’s dreadlocks. Police brutality was a problem then and remains a problem now. We’re as segregated as we ever were. . . .”
Haygood is perhaps best known for writing the Washington Post story about Eugene Allen, who worked for eight presidents in his 34 years at the White House. That became the hit 2013 movie “The Butler,” which Haygood adapted into a book. He also wrote volumes on Sammy Davis Jr., Adam Clayton Powell and Sugar Ray Leonard, but periodically returns in print to his Columbus, Ohio, hometown.
“Tigerland” made the Washington Post’s “50 notable works of nonfiction in 2018.”
Matthew Horace and Ron Harris
Matthew Horace, a retired black police officer and a CNN contributor, and Ron Harris, veteran journalist and adjunct journalism professor at Howard University, have “The Black and the Blue: A Cop Reveals the Crimes, Racism, and Injustice in America’s Law Enforcement” (Hachette, $13.99 hardcover).
At a Journal-isms Roundtable last summer, Harris explained that he and Horace examined cases in Chicago, Memphis, St. Louis and elsewhere, interviewing more than 100 officers and their victims.
“What happens in those cases, everybody turns around and points their fingers at the police officers, and says, it’s always a bad police officer,” Harris said. “It’s not a bad police officer. It’s a bad system. This is a system, and Matt lived the system. As he likes to say, he lived on both sides of the gun. He was a black officer, but he was also a black man who was working undercover when a white officer put a gun in his face and start to shoot him, tell him he had to get on the ground.”
Police must deal with abuse condoned by mayors, the use of fines to help replenish municipal treasuries and calls to police instead of to ambulance dispatchers when dealing with the mentally ill, Harris said.
Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor, a Georgetown University law professor and author of “Chokehold: Policing Black Men,” wrote Sept. 6 in the Washington Post, “If anybody but a cop had written this book, few would believe the stories it contains — at least few white people. ‘The Black and the Blue’ has enough accounts of police atrocities to launch a thousand Black Lives Matter marches.
“There are the familiar cases of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Laquan McDonald in Chicago, young black men gunned down and then treated, in death, more like criminals than the white cops who killed them. [Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago police officer who shot McDonald 16 times, has since been found guilty of murder.] Matthew Horace’s analysis is well researched and cogently presented, even if his ideas are not particularly new or creative.
“His thesis is that the problems of policing minority communities are systemic: Cops do not have adequate training for predictable situations they encounter, such as dealing with addicts and the mentally ill; they are given the impossible task of addressing problems that stem from structural race and class inequalities; and the sociology of policing encourages a warrior ‘us against them’ mentality. . . .”
Last week, “The Black and the Blue” made the longlist for the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction, which carries a $10,000 prize.
- Jacqueline Cutler, Daily News, New York: Black cop feels Blue over injustice in the system (Aug. 5)
- D. Watkins with Matthew Horace, Salon: What would it take to trust the police? A frank discussion on “The Black and the Blue” (Aug. 21)
Mark E. McCormick
Mark E. McCormick, former columnist at the Wichita Eagle, which bills itself as Kansas’ largest newspaper, has “Some Were Paupers, Some Were Kings: Dispatches from Kansas” (Blue Cedar Press, $18 paper).
High school sports reporter Jonathan Long left the Eagle in 2009, where he was then the paper’s last African American reporter. Shortly before leaving, Long said, “It was a big deal to me when I got here that there was an African American metro columnist, somebody who was a hometown guy.”
Long was referring to McCormick, who demonstrates in this collection of his columns what Long meant.
McCormick worked at the Eagle for 14 years, leaving first to become executive director at the Kansas African American Museum. This year, he became director of communications for the ACLU of Kansas.
Only an African American columnist could write “Young Black Men: Help Me Understand,” from 2006, contrasting his own station in life with that of those who are “hurtling toward an early death” with violence.
It’s also unlikely that others would open such a collection with a quotation from Malcolm X, headlined, “Black Coffee,” about the danger of diluting the dark b
everage with too much cream. Or writing in 1996 about “Diversity Week” at Wichita State University, “My fear is that by embracing vague notions of ‘multiculturalism’ or ‘diversity,’ people might be able to avoid dealing with uniquely African American issues. And in the process, the social justice issues of black folks will be watered down, glossed over or completely ignored.”
As newspapers contract, so has the number of black columnists.
On the back cover of this book, syndicated Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. explains, “If it is a reporter’s job to tell you what happened, it’s a columnist’s job to tell you what it means, to plumb the news and nonsense of daily life and distill from it that nugget of wisdom that tells you something you didn’t already know or takes something you thought you knew and forces you to see it with different eyes . . .
“In his years as a columnist for The Wichita Eagle Mark E. McCormick fit that definition to the proverbial tee. . . .”
Pitts has a new novel due out in February.
Askia Muhammad
Askia Muhammad, news director at Pacifica’s WPFW-FM in Washington, columnist for the Washington Informer and senior correspondent for the Nation of Islam’s the Final Call, has “The Autobiography of Charles 67X” (Black Journalism Review, $30 paperback). (“Worth more,” the cover says.)
This 122-page volume made news in January for its inclusion of a 2005 photo of then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan during a Congressional Black Caucus meeting, suppressed at the time for fear the photo would sink Obama’s political career.
Muhammad explains the story behind the photograph, but the book is primarily photos and poetry tracing the life of the onetime Indianola, Miss., child named Charles K. Moreland Jr., who grew up in Los Angeles and in 1968 joined the Nation of Islam and, almost simultaneously, with a Newsweek internship, became a journalist.
Nine years later, Muhammad went to Washington. “I was so fortunate that Louis Martin, the sky end of Black politics in the 20th century, sent me here in 1977 after Jimmy Carter was elected,” Muhammad told Sarafina Wright of the Washington Informer.
“He said, ‘You know Black people put Jimmy Carter in office, it’s going to be a new day for Black people, why don’t you go down to Washington to see what you can do for the Chicago Defender?’
“ ‘In 1957, he sent Ethel Payne here to Washington — the legendary Ethel Payne, on a postage stamp she’s so legendary,’” he said. ‘That is how I got here, and with his patronage I was able to get a White House press pass and so forth.’ ”
The book contains more than three dozen original photographs. Poet and writer A.B. Spellman writes in the foreword, “So what we have in this volume of poetry is your basic whorehouse mirror. From one point of view you can see the world that this fine poet moves through, from another you can see his interior landscape. It all depends on which side of the mirror you stand, and that’s how all good poetry ought to be.”
- Kojo Nnamdi with Askia Muhammad, “The Kojo Nnamdi Show,” WAMU-FM, Washington: The Life, Career And Poetry Of Veteran Journalist Askia Muhammad (audio) (Feb. 1)
Lekan Oguntoyinbo
Lekan Oguntoyinbo, a Dallas-based freelance writer, has “I, Too, Am America: Stories of 50 Amazing American Muslims” (Self-published; $14.99 paper; $4.99 Kindle on Amazon).
“Readers will meet winners of the Nobel Prize, the Oscar, the Emmy, the Pulitzer and the National Medal of Science,” a news release states. “Also profiled are an astronaut, Olympic medalists, NBA stars, comedians, movie stars, elected officials and business magnates. . . .”
A “Journalism and Literature” chapter includes Fareed Zakaria, syndicated columnist and CNN host; Ayad Akhtar, playwright, novelist, screenwriter and actor; Laila Lalami, novelist, essayist and critic; Ayman Mohyeldin, MSNBC host; and Kareen Abdul-Jabbar, athlete-turned-cultural critic.
“Despite its brevity, Oguntoyinbo’s book stands as a primer on Islam in modern-day America,” Abdi Latif Dahir wrote Nov. 25 for Quartz Africa. “It acts to prove what theologians like Amir Hussain asserted: ‘There has never been an America without Muslims.’ ”
Shelley and Barry Spector
Acknowledging that the public relations industry has a diversity problem, leading PR associations have launched an initiative that begins with a book in which more than 40 people of color in PR describe what it’s like to be isolated and/or the objects of unconscious bias, as reported Oct. 31 in this space. They also offer tips and lessons for those entering the field.
On Wednesday, the PRSA Foundation announced the results of a survey conducted in conjunction with the book.
- “While 85% of communications professionals believe diversity in the workplace is either important or very important to them, only 27% believe they’re currently working at an organization that is meaningfully or very diverse.
- “75% of communications professionals believe that increased awareness of diversity issues in news media has led to conversations on D&I within their organization, though 30% say these conversations haven’t led to any notable action,” a news release said.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the ethnic makeup of the PR industry in the United States is 87.9 percent white, 8.3 percent African American, 2.6 percent Asian American and 5.7 percent Hispanic.
In the 2017 survey of the American Society of News Editors, covering newspapers and online outlets, the figures were 83.16 percent white, 5.64 percent black, 5.66 percent Hispanic, .36 percent American Indian, 4.28 percent Asian, .13 percent Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, .57 percent other and .29 percent unknown.
“Diverse Voices: Profiles in Leadership” (PR Museum Press; $39 paper) is published by the PRSA Foundation and Museum of Public Relations and edited by Shelley and Barry Spector, founders of the museum.
Among the participating writers are Neil Foote, a former reporter at the Miami Herald, Dallas Morning News and Washington Post who is president/CEO of Foote Communications LLC, a principal lecturer at the Mayborn School of Journalism at the University of North Texas and president of the National Black Public Relations Society. Another is Rochelle Tillery Larkin Ford, dean of the School of Communications at Elon University who has taught at Howard University and the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University.
In the book, Kim L. Hunter warns, “The kids today . . . won’t join an agency unless they see that there are minorities who succeeded before them.” Hunter is founder and chairman of the LAGRANT Foundation, which provides scholarships to students of color.
The organizers say in an announcement, “In 2019, the PRSA Foundation will facilitate ‘Diverse Voices’ talks at colleges and universities, using the book’s participants as speakers when possible [PDF]. The intention is to provide diverse students with guidance to get a head start upon graduation and begin successful career trajectories in the communications field. . . .
“The book is supported by: The Public Relations Society of America, The Public Relations Student Society of America, Page, PR Council, Institute for Public Relations, The LAGRANT Foundation, The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communications, the National Black Public Relations Society, Hispanic Public Relations Association, The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations, The International Communications Consultancy Organisation and The Society for New Communications Research of The Conference Board, among others.”
Mark Whitaker
Mark Whitaker, author and former television and Newsweek magazine executive, has “Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance” (Simon & Schuster; $30 hardcover; $17 trade paperback; $14.99 ebook).
“The most famous black renaissance of the early 20th century took place in Harlem,” Justin Cober-Lake wrote in May for PopMatters. “That burst of artistic and cultural output, particularly its literature, has been well documented and has become, at least to some degree, a standard part of secondary curricula. The movement happening around the same time in Pittsburgh hasn’t received nearly the attention, but Mark Whitaker’s Smoketown: The Untold Story of the Other Great Black Renaissance launches a valuable corrective. His research opens up new connections in a fascinating history, but his storytelling skills drive the narrative. . . .”
Cober-Lake also wrote, “At the orbital center of the community, The Pittsburgh Courier found its way into every corner of society at the time, and Whitaker threads the paper’s story through all the book’s other elements.
“Another version of this history would simply cover the Courier, following rabbit trails here and there, but Whitaker’s approach shows the connections between different aspects of black life in Pittsburgh, developing a community rather than a series of isolated events. . . .”
Herb Boyd added in February in the New York Times, “Although [heavyweight champ Joe] Louis was not a native of Pittsburgh, by the ’30s his ascendance was due largely to coverage from the sportswriters at The Courier. Similarly, the reporters played a critical role in chronicling the rise of Jackie Robinson and baseball’s integration. And no reporter was more significant in this respect than Wendell Smith.
“All during the grueling period when Robinson was breaking the color barrier in the major leagues, Smith was his companion, helping him deal with the daily slights and indignities. More than just a journalist on the story, Smith was counselor, bodyguard and press agent. . . .
“Whitaker devotes a full chapter to the women at The Courier, including Daisy Lampkin, a society matron and N.A.A.C.P. leader who became the newspaper’s vice president; the secretary Edna Chappell; the gossip columnist Julia Bumry Jones; Hazel Garland, a onetime maid who would become the paper’s editor in chief; and the redoubtable Evelyn Cunningham, who ventured south to cover the burgeoning civil rights movement when she thought her Pittsburgh assignments weren’t challenging enough. . . .”
“Smoketown” made the Washington Post’s list of “50 Notable Works of Nonfiction in 2018.”
- Lauretta Charlton, New York Times: Race/Related: Books We Read to Help Us Understand Racism (Dec. 1)
- Soraya Nadia McDonald, the Undefeated: Our List of 24 Can’t Miss Books for Holiday Gifting (Nov. 23)
- Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed: These Are The Best Nonfiction Books Of 2018
- Hope Wabuke, the Root: These 28 Brilliant Books by Black Authors Are the Standouts in What Was a Stellar Year in Black Literature
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View previous columns (after Feb. 13, 2016).
- Journalist Richard Prince w/Joe Madison (Sirius XM, April 18, 2018) (podcast)
- Richard Prince (journalist) (Wikipedia entry)
- February 2018 Podcast: Richard “Dick” Prince on the need for newsroom diversity (Gabriel Greschler, Student Press Law Center, Feb. 26, 2018)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2017 — Where Will They Take Us in the Year Ahead?
- Book Notes: Best Sellers, Uncovered Treasures, Overlooked History (Dec. 19, 2017)
- An advocate for diversity in the media is still pressing for representation, (Courtland Milloy, Washington Post, Nov. 28, 2017)
- Morgan Global Journalism Review: Journal-isms Journeys On (Aug. 31, 2017)
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2016
- Book Notes: 16 Writers Dish About ‘Chelle,’ the First Lady
- Book Notes: From Coretta to Barack, and in Search of the Godfather
- Journal-isms’ Richard Prince Wants Your Ideas (FishbowlDC, Feb. 26, 2016)
- “JOURNAL-ISMS” IS LATEST TO BEAR BRUNT OF INDUSTRY’S ECONOMIC WOES (Feb. 19, 2016)
- Richard Prince with Charlayne Hunter-Gault,“PBS NewsHour,” “What stagnant diversity means for America’s newsrooms” (Dec. 15, 2015)
- Book Notes: Journalists Follow Their Passions
- Book Notes: Journalists Who Rocked Their World
- Book Notes: Hands Up! Read This!
- Book Notes: New Cosby Bio Looks Like a Best-Seller
- Journo-diversity advocate turns attention to Ezra Klein project (Erik Wemple, Washington Post, March 5, 2014)
- Book Notes: “Love, Peace and Soul!” And More
- Book Notes: Book Notes: Soothing the Senses, Shocking the Conscience
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2015
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2014
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2013
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2012
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2011
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2010
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2009
- Diversity’s Greatest Hits, 2008
- Book Notes: Books to Ring In the New Year
- Book Notes: In-Your-Face Holiday Reads
- Fishbowl Interview With the Fresh Prince of D.C. (Oct. 26, 2012)
- NABJ to Honor Columnist Richard Prince With Ida B. Wells Award (Oct. 11, 2012)
- So What Do You Do, Richard Prince, Columnist for the Maynard Institute? (Richard Horgan, FishbowlLA, Aug. 22, 2012)
- Book Notes: Who Am I? What’s Race Got to Do With It?: Journalists Explore Identity
- Book Notes: Catching Up With Books for the Fall
- Richard Prince Helps Journalists Set High Bar (Jackie Jones, BlackAmericaWeb.com, 2011)
- Book Notes: 10 Ways to Turn Pages This Summer
- Book Notes: 7 for Serious Spring Reading
- Book Notes: 7 Candidates for the Journalist’s Library
- Book Notes: 9 That Add Heft to the Bookshelf
- Five Minutes With Richard Prince (Newspaper Association of America, 2005)
- ‘Journal-isms’ That Engage and Inform Diverse Audiences (Q&A with Mallary Jean Tenore, Poynter Institute, 2008)
