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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 the narrative's shape, Stone writes, they require a "subject possessed of a powerful memory and imagination" to produce a workable narrative.
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 sentences into paragraphs", and organized them into "subject areas". Author William L. Andrews writes:
[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 authority of his ghostwriter, partly because Haley never let Malcolm read the manuscript unless he was present to defend it, partly because in his last months Malcolm had less and less opportunity to reflect on the text of his life because he was so busy living it, and partly because Malcolm had eventually resigned himself to letting Haley's ideas about effective storytelling take precedence over his own desire to denounce straightaway those whom he had once revered.
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 interviews, and long "free style" discussions. Marable writes, "Malcolm also had a habit of scribbling notes to himself as he spoke." Haley would secretly "pocket these sketchy notes" and reassemble them in a sub rosa attempt to integrate Malcolm X's "subconscious reflections" into the "workable narrative". This is an example of Haley asserting authorial agency during the writing of the "Autobiography", indicating that their relationship was fraught with minor power struggles. Wideman and Rampersad agree with Marable's description of Haley's book-writing process.
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 ... led him to order events of his life to support a mythology of metamorphosis and transformation". Marable addresses the confounding factors of the publisher and Haley's authorial influence, passages that support the argument that while Malcolm X may have considered Haley a ghostwriter, he acted in actuality as a coauthor, at times without Malcolm X's direct knowledge or expressed consent:
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, of Malcolm's strong human spirit. But both masks hide as much character as they show. The first mask served a nationalism Malcolm had rejected before the book was finished; the second is mostly empty and available.
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 flexible." Malcolm X had not yet formulated a cohesive Black ideology at the time of his assassination and, Dyson writes, was "experiencing a radical shift" in his core "personal and political understandings".
"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 as "one of the most influential books in late-twentieth-century American culture", and the "Concise Oxford Companion to African American Literature" credits Haley with shaping "what has undoubtedly become the most influential twentieth-century African American autobiography".
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 Repertory Theater, which would serve to catalyze the aesthetic progression of the movement. Writers and thinkers associated with the Black Arts movement found in the "Autobiography" an aesthetic embodiment of his profoundly influential qualities, namely, "the vibrancy of his public voice, the clarity of his analyses of oppression's hidden history and inner logic, the fearlessness of his opposition to white supremacy, and the unconstrained ardor of his advocacy for revolution 'by any means necessary.'"
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 assignment, or because a friend pressed it on them—and that they approached the reading of it without great expectations, but somehow that book ... took hold of them. Got "inside" them. Altered their vision, their outlook, their insight. Changed their lives.
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 that year. Since "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" has sold millions of copies, Marable described Doubleday's choice as the "most disastrous decision in corporate publishing history".
"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 had been sold by 1977. The book experienced increased readership and returned to the best-seller list in the 1990s, helped in part by the publicity surrounding Spike Lee's 1992 film "Malcolm X". Between 1989 and 1992, sales of the book increased by 300%.
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: A Scenario Based on Alex Haley's "The Autobiography of Malcolm X"", published in 1972. Other authors who attempted to draft screenplays include playwright David Mamet, novelist David Bradley, author Charles Fuller, and screenwriter Calder Willingham. Director Spike Lee revised the Baldwin-Perl script for his 1992 film "Malcolm X".
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 with his obtaining sobriety and discussing lessons he has learned.
"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 Junior Republic. Eventually, he found his way into a stable job in the Navy.
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 civil rights activist, and how they shaped his opinions of white America.
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, desires, and fears.
"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 "Jones displays a poet’s knack for the searing detail, and the pages of his memoir are full of beautiful and surprising images that buoy us through the pain and heartache and often seething rage that fuel its propulsive, precise narration."
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's" list of must-read books of 2019".
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 sclerosis, and his stand-up career.
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-volume series. Remaining focused on his political career, the presidential memoir documents Obama's life from his early years through the events surrounding the killing of Osama bin Laden in May 2011.
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 weeks. The book was highly anticipated and, two months before its release, "The New York Times" remarked that it was "virtually guaranteed" to be the year's top seller, despite its mid-November release date. The book is 768 pages long and available in digital, paperback, and hardcover formats and has been translated into two dozen languages. There is also a 28 hour audiobook edition that is read by Obama himself.
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 who conducted the raid. While the book remains focused on politics, the first 200 pages of the book, approximately, are devoted to Obama's life and career up through his time in Chicago.
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 paralleled the interests of various women I was attempting to get to know". Obama evaluated his college reading that "As a strategy for picking up girls, my pseudo-intellectualism proved mostly worthless".
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, he "makes heroes of people". The memoir praises Claire McCaskill for "voting her conscience" on the Dream Act, Tim Geithner for his handling of the 2008 financial crisis, and many 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 someone who’d never been pressed too hard by life”.
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 crowds below were cheering an illusion." Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Eli Stokols, in their respective reviews, described the reaction as "incredulous". Obama also recalled telling the First Lady the news after an early morning phone call and receiving the reply "that's wonderful honey", before she went back to sleep. In analyzing the response, Adichie noted that Obama "considers his public image overinflated; he pushes pins into his own hype balloons."
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 hamstring the U.N.'s ability to tackle problems. Its member states lacked either the means or the collective will to reconstruct failing states like Somalia, or prevent ethnic slaughter in places like Sri Lanka."
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" published a review that stated "Obama knows how to tell a good story" and that "[h]is insight into his mindset during his biggest presidential moments is a reminder of his thoughtfulness". The review continued by stating that "from cover to cover, A Promised Land is a reminder of the narrative that Obama has spent his career enunciating". Other reviews were published in "The Wall Street Journal", "The Financial Times", "Entertainment Weekly", "Esquire", and "Oprah Magazine".
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 which he frequently burrows down into his own motivations" and that it "delivers amply on the basic expectations of political autobiographies, providing a granular view from the driving seat of power." In a third review in "The Guardian", Peter Conrad wrote: "Like the best autobiographers, Barack Obama writes about himself in the hope of discovering who or even what he is."
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 length, and that despite its length, it is the first of multiple volumes. Miller notes that the book has a tendency to provide "what some consider an excess of background information" when describing situations and protocols. The review goes on to note that many of the explanations can seem "remedial" for "a practiced observer of the executive branch", that Miller acknowledges is "often the sort of person who gets asked to weigh in on such a book".
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 wrote in "The Financial Times" that the book's main "deficiency" is that Obama "is too reasonable, almost to the point of detachment."
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 reason than the fact that he was a phenomenon. He concluded that Obama the politician triumphed over Obama the phenomenon.
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 Guardian", and one of the "Best Political Books of 2020" by "Marie Claire".
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 company of both Viking and Crown, has also translated the book into over twenty languages.
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, which runs for 28 hours and 10 minutes and is read by Obama himself, is also available on Audible. It is the third presidential memoir read by its author, following "White House Diary" by Jimmy Carter and "Decision Points" by George W. Bush.
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, Swedish and Vietnamese.
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 Leader".
"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 importance of his desire to be a good man and writer.
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 stigmatizing categorization.
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 spelling out of black injustice. Finally, he ponders on antisemitism amongst blacks and comes to the conclusion that the frustration boils down to Jews being white and more powerful than Negroes.
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. They now enjoy success in New York City.
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 Ruth's life, mostly taking place before her son was born. McBride depicts the conflicting emotions that he endured as he struggled to discover who he truly was, as his mother narrates the hardships that she had to overcome as a white, Jewish woman who chose to marry a black man in 1942.
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 questions of race and identity. Ruth did not want to discuss the painful details of her early family life when her abusive father, Tateh, lorded over her sweet-tempered and meek mother, Mameh ("tateh" and "mameh" are Yiddish terms of endearment for "father" and "mother," roughly equivalent to "daddy and "mommy"). Ruth had cut all ties with her Jewish family, as they had essentially disowned her when she married James's father.
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 always treated them tenderly. She had an unwavering faith in God and strong moral convictions. To Ruth, issues of race and identity took secondary importance to moral beliefs.
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 more than 1.5 million copies. It has been published in 16 languages and in more than 20 countries.
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 both New York City and elsewhere), travels, succumbs to heroin addiction, gets involved in crime, is imprisoned, and is finally released.
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 spend much of his youth and early adult life contemplating his racial and ethnic identity.
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” who is “unsatisfied, hoping, and always reaching.” The Prologue also introduces a note of loneliness, bitterness, and hatred that will continue through the book.
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’s baby brother Ricardo, the family moves from Spanish Harlem to the Italian section on 114th Street to leave all the bad memories behind. Piri has various encounters with the local kids in the street, and despite various fights, Piri earns the Italians' respect by not ratting on them.
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 shocked to later hear a group of girls at the dance talking about his skin colour. This, along with Poppa seeing another woman, makes Piri very upset.
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 (Carlito Diaz’s sister), and calls her his “Marine Tiger.” Later on, Piri makes a new friend named Brew, who forces Piri to further question his own identity; Brew tries to convince Piri that if your skin is black, then you are a black man, no matter what your ethnicity is. Piri and Brew discuss heading South so that Piri can discover what it means to be a black man.
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, not black. Piri becomes angry and upset that his own brother does not understand him, and this further intensifies his desire to head South. Poppa makes an effort to relate to and comfort Piri, but Piri still decides to leave, despite the objections from his family.
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 identify himself with the ethnicity that they choose.
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 speak or where you come from, if you are black, then you are black.
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. Luckily, Waneko and his mother eventually help Piri with the drug detoxification process. To distract him from drugs, Piri participates in robberies with Danny, Billy and Loui; with each and every robbery, Piri becomes less and less concerned with the consequences of his actions and all the people he affects and hurts.
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 New York. However, the robbery doesn't go according to plan; Piri is shot in the chest, and upon trying to escape back to Harlem, he shoots the police officer who shot him. Piri is then arrested and taken to a hospital.
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 as other educational certificates. Above all, Piri describes his encounters he has with other inmates. Among the most significant encounters are with a Nation of Islam study group. Piri also begins to read a lot and becomes interested in psychology, and fascinated by the meaning of God and understanding.
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 appearance before the parole board approaches, he tries to remain calm and collected; he even stops himself from fighting another inmate. Piri is later told by the parole board that he will in fact be going home.
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 punish him for his actions. In fact, she lets Piri do what he wants, despite differences in opinion. The two of them have a special kind of love; one that Piri respects and cherishes. When Piri heads South with Brew, he learns that his mother is sick and in the hospital; when Piri returns to see her, she is in very critical condition and later dies.
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 impose chauvinistic attitudes that only hinders more women and queer folks into the hierarchical structure of the United States.
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 your race. Piri is at the limbo, he is confused about his identity. But, while the social system (and his friend Brew) continually blackens him, he admits to feeling identified as a Puerto Rican.
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 him to reinforce his resistance toward the white and black binary that obliterates distinctive elements of his identity. So Piri’s trip to the South can be seen as a continuous struggle for the self-recognition of his own blackness.
"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 Puerto Rican in the United States.” Indeed, Ilan Stavans notes that "Down These Means Streets" is “now considered a classic and has never been out of print.”
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 Rican writing exposes anger towards Americanization and assimilation”, just as Thomas does in his book. Bernard-Carreño also asserts that “Nuyorican writing became the genre that included the dynamics of language (bilingualism), bicultural identity (the island vs. the mainland), and the sociopolitics contained therein. While all these dynamics inform Nuyorican writing, language is perhaps one of the critical constructors of the Nuyorican experience and identity…Nuyorican identity became its own culture composed of bicultural and bilingual people.”
"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 the children’s minds.” While speaking at a college in Darien, Thomas said, “Listen, you can’t keep your kids in a greenhouse. This is the reality of what’s happening.”
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 climbed a nearby hill. A kilometer to the rear of the vehicle column he spotted a large body of white-clad Koreans coming toward them.
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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