Maggie's American Dream

Description

From Publishers Weekly Maggie's eldest child, the first of her five offspring to achieve advanced degrees, here remembers three generations of his black American family. Resurrecting the tradition of oral family history, Comer, a child psychiatrist, transcribes his mother's reminiscences. She was born in Mississippi in 1904 and matured in an extended sharecropping family, struggling against rampant poverty and racism. Her indomitable spirit, pride and financial acumen would later provide her own children a standard of living unusually high for most blacks and many whites of the Depression years. Interesting contrast is provided in the book's second part by the autobiographical account of the author's formative years. Descriptions of his gentle father's intolerable working conditions at a steel mill, which led to his premature death, are heartbreaking. As the author shows, the quest for personal honor, intellectual excellence and economic success in our bigoted society remains the most valued parental legacy of Maggie's children. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more From Library Journal This poignant book is several stories: the oral history of the struggles of a black mother who saw education as the road to the American dream and propelled her five children to 13 college degrees; the autobiography of a son who credits his mother with his becoming one of America's foremost specialists on the role of social problems in mental health; and proof that social commitment can help solve problems in black communities. More than the document of a single family, this book encapsulates the black South-to-North movement, from days of segregation to days of flickering hope. Highly recommended for Afro- American and American social history collections. Thomas J. Davis, SUNY at BuffaloCopyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Hardcover: 228 pages
• Publisher: New American Library; 1st Printing edition (November 22, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0453005888
• ISBN-13: 83
• Product Dimensions: 20 x 20 x 20 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds

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