Black Lives Matter, Part III

Here are a some more good books to read about black lives: 

Karen Tanabe, The Gilded Years.  This is a fictional view of the true life story of Anita Hemmings , a black woman who graduated from Vassar in 1897.  Ms. Hemmings was voted most beautiful, worked as a tutor in Greek to make ends meet  and was at the top of her class.  All the while she was also hiding her black identity.   A beautifully written coming of age novel with a heavy  dose of the real truth and nothing but.  Vassar did not officially admit black women until 1944, and did not recognize that it has already graduated a black woman until the 1930s.  By then, Vassar has graduated two black women.  In 1926, it admitted Ellen Love, overlooking the fact that she was black in honor of the time-honored private school  practice of admitting children of graduates.  Love was Hemmings' daughter.  

Leonard Pitts Jr., Freeman.   Pitts is a columnist writing for  the Miami Herald and syndicated through ArcaMAX.    He is a  clear-thinking progressive who is always worth reading.   He is also a fairly good hand at fiction, having written a handful of novels.  (I'm planning to order another, a historical novel about WWII, called  The Last Thing You Surrender.)   Freeman is a man who escaped from slavery before the Civil War and surrendered the security of  his Philadelphia home to find his true love, left behind a slave.  It's a bitterly sad romantic adventure. 

Walter Mosley, Fortunate Son.  Moseley began his career as a crime fiction writer and has since published science fiction, modern novels and self help (one of the better books on how to write a novel.  Best advice: write three hours a day.)  In this allegory, one son is substantially privileged and one lives the life of Job. 

Grace F. Edwards, In the Shadow of The Peacock.  I discovered Grace Edwards in the Obituary section of the New York  Times a few weeks ago.  She had just died at age 87, a highly regarded mystery writer who had never crossed my path.  This novel, her first, is not a mystery.  It's a coming of age tale  that loosely tracks her own life story.  This is the story of Celia, whose parents escaped a lynching in their  southern home, and migrated to Harlem where Celia is born in the middle of a riot that killed her father.   Her mother, Frieda,  protects Celia with a little help from her friends, but Celia must decide for herself how to confront  the real world of white people.