John A. Williams

In the early 1960s, novelist and journalist John A. Williams was commissioned by Holiday magazine to test the winds of racial change across the USA. Williams set out on a cross-country tour in a shiny new car (a station wagon) and with, as the cover states, "a fistful of credit cards". This book is a searingly honest account of both the good and the bad he encountered.

This is My Country Too

Walter Mosley

A Novel

Man Who Cried I Am

The Man Who Cried I Am (Tusk Ivories)

Tim Streader

Traces the history of stage lighting, describes basic equipment and techniques, discusses color, special effects, and safety, and shows how problems were solved for four productions

Create Your Own Stage Lighting

Wounded during a search-and-destroy mission in Vietnam, Captain Abraham Blackman lapses into a coma and hallucinates about the role of the black soldier past and present in this time-machine variation. PW called this "a dramatically sound and exciting retelling of history." The novel seamlessly blends fantasy and history from 1776 to the early 1970s.

Captain Blackman

The King God Didn't Save : Reflections on the Life and Death of Martin Luther King, Jr

Robert Hunter

Sidney John Hervon Herrtage

The American Encyclopaedic Dictionary ...

S. J. Herrtage

The American Encyclopædic Dictionary

T.J. Winter

The Muslim Family and Islam and World Peace

Understanding Islam and the Muslims

Project N 062-198, Office of Naval Research

Scale Effects of Models of Hydraulic Breakwaters

The powerful story of a vibrant African American family torn apart by inner turmoil and the injustices perpetrated by a racist society Sissie Joplin is dying, and her surviving children have come to say good-bye. Estranged from their mother for years, Iris and Ralph have both achieved success—Iris as a jazz singer in Europe and Ralph as a playwright—but the pain of their youth remains forever alive in their memories. Sissie, too, remembers: the bitter struggles and the devastating tragedies; the indignities, cruelties, and deprivations visited upon a strong-willed black woman—and on the once proud men in her life ultimately defeated by a white society that at times seemed devoted to their destruction. Sissie was not always wise or fair, and her actions often did more harm than good, but she survived. And now, at the end of her life, it is time for a reckoning—and one last opportunity to heal. A powerfully affecting family saga and a provocative indictment of racism in America, Sissie is a magnificent achievement by John A. Williams, the award-winning author heralded by Ishmael Reed as “the best African American writer of the century.”

Sissie

A “fascinating novel” of race and war in historical US conflicts—through the eyes of a black soldier inexplicably traveling through time (The New York Times Book Review). In the midst of the racial tensions in the army during the Vietnam War, Capt. Abraham Blackman does what he can to educate his fellow black soldiers on the history of race relations in the US military. But when he is gravely wounded in the jungle of Southeast Asia, he finds himself inexplicably rocketed into those conflicts of the past. From slavery to segregation, Blackman experiences firsthand the racism—from subtle and insidious discrimination to outright violence—of the American military’s past. Yet no matter the conflict, be it the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or World War II, Blackman fights for a racist military establishment that expects black soldiers to die for the cause of “freedom”—even when they are denied it at home. Ultimately, Blackman’s greatest challenge will take place in his own time, in Vietnam, where he must battle not only to survive but for that most elusive of victories: justice. This “necessary [and] boldly experimental” historical novel from the two-time American Book Award–winning author brilliantly explores the complicated legacy of the African American soldier throughout US history (The New York Times Book Review).

Dennis A. Wiliams

Though it is hard to imagine what America will be like now that Richard Pryor has passed away, it would be harder to imagine life if there had never been a Pryor, teaching us to laugh, and by laughing, to see. In the 1960s, when many black performers were trying to open the color barrier, comedian Richard Pryor was slamming into it with a vengeance. Employing the language and attitude of the black ghetto, he assaulted racism in comic routines that were both outrageous and screamingly funny. If I Stop, I'll Die examines the comedian's life and humor which not only reveals details of Pryor's troubled but briliant career, but also places these events within the context that shaped Pryor's outlook, personality, and opportunities. It captures the irony that pervaded his life and career: how he could present brilliantly universal material from such a militantly black perspective; how the powers of Hollywood could force him to portray on film the very racial caricatures that he lampooned on stage; how he could publicly flaunt his private exploits, with embellished comedic versions of his drug use, sexual adventures and bursts of violence, while fiercely protecting the real facts behind such episodes.

The Comedy and Tragedy of Richard Pryor

If I Stop, I'll Die

Inspired by the life of Charlie “Bird” Parker, this poignant, provocative, and stylistically brilliant tale paints a vivid picture of the New York City jazz scene In Greenwich Village, jazz is king, enticing hip young crowds with its seductive and vibrant rhythms. Jazz is also the lifeblood pumping through the veins of Richie “Eagle” Stokes, a saxophonist blessed with an otherworldly talent but cursed by cravings for women, fame, and heroin. To ex–college professor David Hillary, musicians like Stokes are gods possessed with the uncanny ability to turn a private inner world inside out and make everything else irrelevant. And for ex-preacher Keel Robinson, Hillary’s unlikely savior, the bewitching music serves as a bridge across racial boundaries as he embarks on a forbidden and dangerous love affair. Considered one of the finest novelists of a generation that included James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, and Richard Wright, author John A. Williams follows a diverse cast of all-too-human characters through nighttime New York City in this incendiary and unforgettable novel.

Night Song

Soil Survey, Zuni Mountain Area, New Mexico

A black musician arrested by Nazis in 1930s Germany endures the horrors of the Dachau death camp in this harrowing novel based on historical fact A self-proclaimed “gay negro” from New Orleans, Clifford Pepperidge made his name in the smoky nightclubs of Harlem in the 1920s, playing piano alongside Bessie Smith, Duke Ellington, and other jazz greats. A decade later, he thrills crowds nightly in the cabarets of Weimar Berlin. But dark days are on the horizon as the Nazi Party rises to power. Arrested by Hitler’s Gestapo during a roundup of homosexuals, Clifford finds himself placed in “protective custody” and transported to a concentration camp. Stripped of his dignity and his identity, and plunged into a nightmare of forced labor, starvation, and abuse, he seeks escape in his music. When a camp SS officer and jazz aficionado recognizes Clifford, the gentle musician learns just how far a desperate man will go in order to survive. Shining a light on a little-known aspect of the Holocaust, Clifford’s Blues is a disturbing portrait of a dark era in world history and a poignant celebration of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of music.

John A. Williams

About

Books

Join the club