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In Stone's estimation, supported by Wideman, the source of autobiographical material and the efforts made to shape them into a workable narrative are distinct, and of equal value in a critical assessment of the collaboration that produced the "Autobiography". While Haley's skills as writer have significant influence on... |
While Marable argues that Malcolm X was his own best revisionist, he also points out that Haley's collaborative role in shaping the "Autobiography" was notable. Haley influenced the narrative's direction and tone while remaining faithful to his subject's syntax and diction. Marable writes that Haley worked "hundreds of... |
[T]he narrative evolved out of Haley's interviews with Malcolm, but Malcolm had read Haley's typescript, and had made interlineated notes and often stipulated substantive changes, at least in the earlier parts of the text. As the work progressed, however, according to Haley, Malcolm yielded more and more to the authori... |
Andrews suggests that Haley's role expanded because the book's subject became less available to micro-manage the manuscript, and "Malcolm had eventually resigned himself" to allowing "Haley's ideas about effective storytelling" to shape the narrative. |
Marable studied the "Autobiography" manuscript "raw materials" archived by Haley's biographer, Anne Romaine, and described a critical element of the collaboration, Haley's writing tactic to capture the voice of his subject accurately, a disjoint system of data mining that included notes on scrap paper, in-depth intervi... |
The timing of the collaboration meant that Haley occupied an advantageous position to document the multiple conversion experiences of Malcolm X and his challenge was to form them, however incongruent, into a cohesive workable narrative. Dyson suggests that "profound personal, intellectual, and ideological changes ... l... |
Marable says the resulting text was stylistically and ideologically distinct from what Marable believes Malcolm X would have written without Haley's influence, and it also differs from what may have actually been said in the interviews between Haley and Malcolm X. |
[T]he autobiography iconizes Malcolm twice, not once. Its second Malcolm—the El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz finale—is a mask with no distinct ideology, it is not particularly Islamic, not particularly nationalist, not particularly humanist. Like any well crafted icon or story, the mask is evidence of its subject's humanity, ... |
Haley writes that during the last months of Malcolm X's life "uncertainty and confusion" about his views were widespread in Harlem, his base of operations. In an interview four days before his death Malcolm X said, "I'm man enough to tell you that I can't put my finger on exactly what my philosophy is now, but I'm flex... |
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X" has influenced generations of readers. In 1990, Charles Solomon writes in the "Los Angeles Times", "Unlike many '60s icons, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", with its double message of anger and love, remains an inspiring document." Cultural historian Howard Bruce Franklin describes it ... |
Considering the literary impact of Malcolm X's "Autobiography", we may note the tremendous influence of the book, as well as its subject generally, on the development of the Black Arts Movement. Indeed, it was the day after Malcolm's assassination that the poet and playwright, Amiri Baraka, established the Black Arts R... |
bell hooks writes "When I was a young college student in the early seventies, the book I read which revolutionized my thinking about race and politics was "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"." David Bradley adds: |
She [hooks] is not alone. Ask any middle-aged socially conscious intellectual to list the books that influenced his or her youthful thinking, and he or she will most likely mention "The Autobiography of Malcolm X". Some will do more than mention it. Some will say that ... they picked it up—by accident, or maybe by assi... |
Max Elbaum concurs, writing that ""The Autobiography of Malcolm X" was without question the single most widely read and influential book among young people of all racial backgrounds who went to their first demonstration sometime between 1965 and 1968." |
At the end of his tenure as the first African-American U.S. Attorney General, Eric Holder selected "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" when asked what book he would recommend to a young person coming to Washington, D.C. |
Doubleday had contracted to publish "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" and paid a $30,000 advance to Malcolm X and Haley in 1963. In March 1965, three weeks after Malcolm X's assassination, Nelson Doubleday, Jr., canceled its contract out of fear for the safety of his employees. Grove Press then published the book later ... |
"The Autobiography of Malcolm X" has sold well since its 1965 publication. According to "The New York Times", the paperback edition sold 400,000 copies in 1967 and 800,000 copies the following year. The "Autobiography" entered its 18th printing by 1970. "The New York Times" reported that six million copies of the book ... |
In 1968 film producer Marvin Worth hired novelist James Baldwin to write a screenplay based on "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"; Baldwin was joined by screenwriter Arnold Perl, who died in 1971 before the screenplay could be finished. Baldwin developed his work on the screenplay into the book "One Day, When I Was Lost:... |
In July 2018, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture acquired one of the "missing chapters", "The Negro", at auction for $7,000. |
The book has been published in more than 45 editions and in many languages, including Arabic, German, French, Indonesian. Important editions include: |
The Riot Within: My Journey from Rebellion to Redemption is a 2012 autobiography of Rodney King (1965–2012). Known by a videotape as a victim of Los Angeles Police Department brutality, he became a civil rights icon. The book is co-authored by Lawrence J. Spagnola, an award-winning writer. |
King reflects his reluctance as a civil rights icon, after a federal trial in which two of the officers were convicted. The city of LA made a settlement with him, paying damages. He felt as if he attracted opportunists and was used by some. He continued to battle addiction and other issues. The book finally wraps up wi... |
"The Riot Within" received mostly positive reviews by both the independent and mainstream media. |
"The Riot Within" was classified by Amazon as a "Criminal Biography" and was listed next to books about serial killers, mob bosses and hackers. Amazon has refused to comment on why a memoir about a police brutality victim would be listed as such. The book was eventually re-classified under "Memoir and Historical". |
Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America (1994) is an autobiographical and debut book by Nathan McCall. |
In an April 2014 interview with "Ebony" magazine, Nathan McCall stated that he was amazed that "Makes Me Wanna Holler" was still selling 20 years after it was originally published. |
Finding Fish is a 2001 autobiographical book by Antwone Fisher. |
Antwone Fisher was born in prison to an incarcerated mother and a father who had been shot by a girlfriend. After being placed in foster care, Fisher was treated brutally and blamed for his own misfortunes. He was also sexually abused by a woman who often babysat him from around age 3 to 8. He then was sent to George J... |
Later, Fisher became a security guard at Sony Pictures Studios, where his story inspired producer Todd Black to make a film, "Antwone Fisher", based on his story. |
Die Nigger Die! is a 1969 political autobiography by the American political activist H. Rap Brown (now known as Jamil Abdullah al-Amin). The book was first released in the United States in 1969 (by Dial Press) and then in the United Kingdom in 1970 (by Allison & Busby). Brown describes his experiences as a young black ... |
He expresses his opinions on what he believes black Americans need to do to break free from white oppression. As a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and from 1968 a member of the Black Panther Party, he was heavily involved with organizations that espoused a Black Power ideology. |
After Brown's conviction for murder in March 2002, the book was reprinted by Lawrence Hill Press, with a foreword by Ekwueme Michael Thelwell. |
How We Fight for Our Lives is a coming-of-age memoir written by American author Saeed Jones and published by Simon & Schuster in 2019. The story follows Jones as a young, black, gay man in 1990s Lewisville, Texas as he fights to carve out a place for himself, within his family, within his country, within his own hopes,... |
"How We Fight for Our Lives" has earned widespread critical acclaim. It received starred reviews from "Publishers Weekly", "Library Journal" and "Kirkus Reviews". NPR called the book an "Extremely personal, emotionally gritty, and unabashedly honest...outstanding memoir." The Los Angeles Review of Books noted that "Jon... |
In 2019 the book won the Kirkus Prize for Nonfiction; in 2020 it won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir/Biography, the Stonewall Book Award-Israel Fishman Non-Fiction Award and the Randy Shilts Award for gay nonfiction. It was listed in "Kirkus Reviews" Best Books of 2019 in the Best Memoirs section and on "Time'... |
Pryor Convictions: And Other Life Sentences is an autobiography by the American comedian Richard Pryor. The book was published in 1995. Included are details of Pryor's rough childhood growing up in his mother's brothel, his drug problems, his seven marriages, his self-immolation, his life dealing with multiple sclerosi... |
There Will Be No Miracles Here is a 2018 memoir by Casey Gerald. |
A Promised Land is a memoir by Barack Obama, the 44th President of the United States from 2009 to 2017. Published on November 17, 2020, by Crown Publishing Group, a subsidiary of Penguin Random House, in the United States and Viking, owned by Penguin Random House, in the United Kingdom, it is the first of a planned two... |
The book has received many reviews and was put on end-of-year best of lists by "The New York Times", "The Washington Post", and "The Guardian". Commercially, it has been extremely successful and, as of the January 24, 2021 issue, the book has been the "New York Times" best-seller in non-fiction for eight consecutive we... |
Obama said in a tweet following the announcement of the publication of the book that he has aimed to "provide an honest accounting of my presidency, the forces we grapple with as a nation, and how we can heal our divisions and make democracy work for everybody". |
The memoir, remaining focused on Obama's political life, begins with his early life, details his first campaigns, and stretches through most of his first term as President. The book concludes with the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011, ending with a meeting between Obama and the Navy SEALs w... |
Obama, when describing his days attending college in the 1980s, admitted that he would read Karl Marx, Michel Foucault and Herbert Marcuse in order to impress potential love interests. Obama reminisced that "it’s embarrassing to recognize the degree to which my intellectual curiosity those first two years of college pa... |
Obama gives favorable descriptions to many of the staffers and other politicians that he encounters throughout his early life and presidency. In her review for the New York Times, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie noted that Obama's "affection for his first-term inner circle" was "moving" and that in his descriptions of others,... |
Obama is also critical in his description of some other world leaders, such as by writing that the Vladimir Putin's "satirical image of masculine vigor" is the result of "the fastidiousness of a teenager on Instagram." British Prime Minister David Cameron is described by Obama as someone with “the easy confidence of so... |
Some reviewers commented on Obama's reaction to winning the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, writing in the book that his simple response was "for what?". Obama elaborated when arriving in Oslo for the Nobel ceremony: "The idea that I, or any one person, could bring order to such chaos seemed laughable... On some level, the cro... |
Obama notes in the book, "In the middle of the Cold War, the chances of reaching any consensus had been slim, which is why the U.N. had stood idle as Soviet tanks rolled into Hungary or U.S. planes dropped napalm on the Vietnamese countryside. Even after the Cold War, divisions within the Security Council continued to ... |
According to book review aggregator website Book Marks, "A Promised Land" received favorable reviews. From the 33 reviews collected, 12 were classified as "rave", 16 as "positive" and 5 as "mixed". |
Among magazine reviews, Laura Miller, in "Slate Magazine", wrote that the book "is a pleasure to read for the intelligence, equanimity, and warmth of its author—from his unfeigned delight in his fabulously wholesome family to his manifest fondness for the people who worked for and with him, especially early on". "Time"... |
In a review in "The Guardian", Gary Younge wrote: "As a work of political literature A Promised Land is impressive" and that "Obama is a gifted writer". In a second review published by "The Guardian", Julian Borger describes the book as "701 pages of elegantly written narrative, contemplation and introspection, in whic... |
In her "Slate Magazine" article on November 20, 2020, Laura Miller summarized the book's initial reviews by stating it is "admirable but, depending on their viewpoints, insufficiently intimate, lacking racial indignation, or just a bit glum." Miller also noted that many of the book's critics complained about the book's... |
Philip Terzian wrote in "The Wall Street Journal" that "[a]s a matter of substance", the book "tells us little that a newspaper reader wouldn't already know" and that it "can get monotonous at times", going on to write that the "chapters unfold in a formulaic, curiously uniform, fashion". In another review, Edward Luce... |
Tshilidzi Marwala in "Cape Argus", "The Star" (South Africa) and voices 360 wrote that Obama like light has a dual nature, one the phenomenon and another the politician. Obama the politician achieved many things under hostile environment while Obama the phenomenon was inspirational and won the Nobel prize for no other ... |
Among other acclamations, the book won the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Memoir and Autobiography. It was named one of "The 10 Best Books of 2020" by "The New York Times Book Review", one of "50 notable works of nonfiction in 2020" by "The Washington Post", one of the "Best politics books of 2020" by "The Guard... |
The book was released on November 17, 2020, soon after the national elections, in hardcover, digital and audiobook formats. The bestselling memoir was published by Crown Publishing Group in the United States and Canada while Viking Press served as publisher in other English speaking countries. Penguin, the parent compa... |
In English, the book has been released in paperback, hardcover, eBook, and audio versions. The book was published by Crown Publishing Group in the United States and Canada and by Viking Press in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, India, and South Africa. The unabridged audiobook version of the book, w... |
Alongside the English original, Penguin Random House announced in September 2020 that 24 translations will be published: Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish,... |
Notes of a Native Son is a collection of ten essays by James Baldwin, published in 1955, mostly tackling issues of race in America and Europe. The volume, as his first non-fiction book, compiles essays of Baldwin that had previously appeared in such magazines as "Harper's Magazine", "Partisan Review", and "The New Lead... |
"Notes of a Native Son" is widely regarded as a classic of the black autobiographical genre. The Modern Library placed it at number 19 on its list of the 100 best 20th-century nonfiction books. |
In spite of his father wanting him to be a preacher, Baldwin says he had always been a writer at heart. He tried to find his path as a black writer; although he was not European, American culture is informed by that culture too—moreover he had to grapple with other black writers. Furthermore, Baldwin emphasizes the imp... |
Baldwin castigates Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for being too sentimental, and for depicting black slaves as praying to a white God so as to be cleansed and whitened. He proceeds to repudiate Richard Wright's "Native Son" for portraying Bigger Thomas as an angry black man, viewing this as an example of s... |
Baldwin offers a sharp critique of Richard Wright's "Native Son", citing its main character, Bigger Thomas, as unrealistic, unsympathetic and stereotypical. |
"Carmen Jones: The Dark Is Light Enough". |
Baldwin criticises "Carmen Jones", a film adaptation of "Carmen" using an all-black cast. Baldwin is unhappy that the characters display no connection to the condition of blacks and sees it as no coincidence that the main characters have lighter complexions. |
Baldwin points out that the rent is very expensive in Harlem. Moreover, although there are black politicians, the President is white. On to the black press, Baldwin notes that it emulates the white press, with its scandalous spreads and so forth. However the black Church seems to him to be a unique forum for the spelli... |
Baldwin tells the story that happened to The Melodeers, a group of jazz singers (including two of Baldwin's brothers) employed by the Progressive Party to sing in Southern Churches. However, once in Atlanta, Georgia, they were used for canvassing until they refused to sing at all and were returned to their hometown. Th... |
The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother, is the autobiography and memoir of James McBride first published in 1995; it is also a tribute to his mother, whom he calls Mommy, or Ma. The chapters alternate between James McBride's descriptions of his early life and first-person accounts of his mother R... |
In "The Color of Water" author James McBride writes both his autobiography and a tribute to the life of his mother, Ruth McBride. Ruth married Andrew Dennis McBride, a black man from North Carolina. James's childhood was spent in a chaotic household of twelve children who had neither the time nor the outlet to ponder q... |
James weaves his own life story into his mother's story. Ruth's philosophies on race, religion, and work influence him greatly. Ruth always sent her children to the best schools, no matter the commute, to ensure they received the finest possible educations. She demanded respect and hard work from her children, and alwa... |
Ruth died at her home in Ewing, New Jersey, on January 9, 2010. |
James spoke of the Civil Rights Movement which foreshadowed his decision to lean towards the African-American side of his bi-racial identity. Many of his older siblings had also chosen to only acknowledge that they were African-American. |
This symbolized her constant need for movement in order to deal with her stress and depression and escapism. |
When Ruth's mother sang the song "Birdie, Birdie, Fly Away", she was referring to Ruth as the bird, able to move so swiftly and easily, while she referred to herself as the handicapped bird who deserved to be sacrificed and killed. This foreshadowed her death. |
The trade paper edition, published in February, 1998, was on the "New York Times" bestseller list for over 100 weeks (2 years), won the 1997 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Literary Excellence, was an ALA Notable Book of the Year, The New York Women's Agenda's first book for "New York City Reads Together" and has sold mo... |
Down These Mean Streets is a memoir by Piri Thomas, a Latino of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent who grew up in Spanish Harlem, a section of Harlem with a large Puerto Rican population. The book follows Piri through the first few decades of his life, lives in poverty, joins and fights with street gangs, faces racism (in ... |
One of the major themes of "Down These Mean Streets" centers on Piri Thomas's identity as a dark-complexioned Puerto Rican. Although he is of Puerto Rican and Cuban heritage, he is seen as black rather than Hispanic or Latino. His own family rejects the African aspect of their Latino-Caribbean ancestry, causing Piri to... |
The book was originally published in 1967. A special Thirtieth Anniversary Edition in 1997 included a new afterword from the author. A sequel, "7 Long Times", gives more depth to his prison years. |
The book opens with a "Prologue" in which Thomas articulates the reason he has written this memoir: “I wanna tell ya I’m here — you bunch of mother-jumpers — I’m here, and I want recognition, whatever that mudder-fuckin word means.” Piri introduces himself as a “skinny, dark-face, curly-haired, intense Porty-Ree-can” w... |
The story proper begins in Harlem where Piri is living with his family. The year is 1941, at the tail end of the Depression, and Thomas's father has a job with the Works Progress Administration, while his mother stays at home with the children, often telling them stories of her homeland, Puerto Rico. After the death of... |
Piri and his family move to the Long Island suburbs. Piri is apprehensive because he has heard bad things about the area, but upon arriving, Piri seems to do quite well in his new neighbourhood. He plays baseball with classmates and attends a school dance where he flirts with a girl named Marcia; however, Piri is shock... |
Three months later, Piri ends up leaving Long Island with the intention of starting anew back in Harlem. Here, however, he finds himself homeless. Desperate for cash, Piri searches for work and goes after a position as a sales representative. Still in Harlem, Piri introduces himself to the girl of his dreams, Trina (Ca... |
Brew shares with Piri the ABC lesson; this lesson is about how to forgive white men for things such as racism, and how to remain calm in uncomfortable situations because of their skin colour. Piri argues with his brother José because José does not understand why Piri wants to go South; in his view, Piri is Puerto Rican... |
Piri and Brew check into a hotel in Norfolk, and later talk to a man at the ‘National Maritime Union’ building. The two of them share stories with this man regarding being singled out due to the colour of their skin; however, the man disagrees with Brew’s opinions on identity and explains that every man is free to iden... |
Piri and Brew head out on the ship, on which Piri works as a waiter. When they arrive in Texas, Piri goes out with a man and they both want to hire sexual workers; Piri says he wants to hire a white woman. Through his various encounters down South, Piri realizes that every place he goes to, no matter what language you ... |
Shortly after Piri heads back to New York, Momma dies and Piri becomes angry and resentful with Poppa upon remembering that he had another woman. Piri goes back to living on the roofs, streets and apartments of friends in Harlem; he also gets back into drugs and begins to sell everything he can to have money for heroin... |
While Trina is in Puerto Rico, Piri impregnates a different Puerto Rican woman, Dulcien. Piri takes responsibility and buys tickets for Dulcien to go back to New York with the baby. Piri also convinces Louie to get into business again; they, along with Billy and Danny, carry out a robbery in bar/discotheque in downtown... |
Piri wakes up in the hospital, is questioned by police and is transferred to prison to await trial; he is sentenced to no more than 5-15 years for armed robbery, which he will serves at Sing Sing and then Comstock State Prison. In prison, he studies masonry, works in construction, gets his high school diploma as well a... |
Piri’s family visits him together for the first time in three years; they share with Piri the news that Trina has gotten married. At the end of nearly four years in prison, Piri is finally eligible for parole; however, he is told that he will have to wait another two years because his case is very serious.As his second... |
Momma Piri’s mother was born in Puerto Rico, and is still closely attached to her homeland. She has fair skin, unlike her husband and Piri. Piri and his mother have a close, solid relationship; they support and understand each other. She sees that Piri is struggling at school and getting into fights, but she doesn’t pu... |
Another perspective that this memoir permits to analyze in terms of race and gender, is how characters continually struggle against racial oppression at expense of women and queer subjects. The struggle in search of recognition makes not only Piri but also characters like his father, and Brew, to neglect women and impo... |
On the other hand, Brew, who is a dark-skinned African American from Harlem, represents more the vision of “an angry black nationalists of the 1960s.” Brew believes that if you look like a negro, then you are one, and that there is no way you can escape this destiny. For Brew, the color of your skin is what determines ... |
Another interpretation of Piri’s decision to go to the South, sustains that Piri does so in order to know “what’s shaking” or what is happening down there. His trip to the South would have meant for Piri, an increase in his solidarity sentiment for Afro American people against white supremacy. This trip has also served... |
"Down These Mean Streets" is seen by many scholars to be a foundational work of the Nuyorican literary canon. Thomas has been described as “the best known of his generation of writers and is generally considered the chronicler of the barrio since he was the first to describe his experiences as a second-generation Puert... |
Critic Regina Bernard-Carreño states that “Nuyorican biographies, novels and poetry, spoke directly to [the] misrepresentations of a people and their anti-colonial struggle. An important factor in Puerto Rican immigrant writing and the Nuyorican experience is the articulation of difference and anger [. . .]. Puerto Ric... |
"Down These Mean Streets" has either been banned or challenged in Salinas, California; Teaneck, NJ; Darien, CT; District 25 in Queens, New York City, New York; and in Long Island, New York. |
In an interview, Thomas acknowledges that "Down These Mean Streets" “was censored all over the place.” Specifically, Thomas mentions Darien, Connecticut where a bond was issued unless the book was removed from town’s shelves. Thomas continues, stating that the censorship was due to a worry that it “was going to poison ... |
Firefight at Yechon: Courage and Racism in the Korean War, is an autobiography by Charles M. Bussey. |
Bussey joined the Tuskegee Airmen, an all-black air unit, which protected Allied bombers on missions over Europe during World War II in over North Africa, Italy and finally Germany. |
Bussey later served as an Army officer in the Korean war. |
On July 20, 1950, Bussey was returning to his 77th Engineer Combat Company with mail from the states for one of his platoons, when he came across a dozen "lollygagagging" (resting) army truck drivers. Bussey heard fighting in the town ahead, in which Bassey states his company was supposed to provide back up support. He... |
Bussey ordered the drivers to unload the two machine guns and ammunition in their trucks and drag them to the top of the hill. |
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