Written with the cooperation of its subject, this is a solid, comprehensive biography that brings into focus a historical giant who has, sadly, faded from view. As his subtitle suggests, former Washington Post reporter Williams (author of the best-selling Eyes on the Prize, companion volume to the PBS documentary of the same name) is interested foremost in Thurgood Marshall’s role as the leader “of a burgeoning social revolution” during the early years of the civil rights movement. What’s surprising is how deeply opposed the brilliant lawyer was to the other two members of what Williams dubs “the black triumvirate.” Marshall disdained Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent protests as ineffective and resented the media attention King garnered; he saw Malcolm X as a destructive thug. Reviewing Marshall’s stunning impact on the nation’s legal system—first as the NAACP’s chief counsel, later as President Lyndon Johnson’s solicitor general, and finally as the first black Supreme Court justice—Williams dramatically and persuasively makes the case that Marshall, the man who ended legal segregation with his landmark Brown v. Board of Education victory, is by far the most important of the three. Though Marshall’s string of legal victories brought him fame as a crusader and savior of his race during the 1950s, he was rejected by militant black-power advocates in the late ’60s, when his gradualism and respect for law and order were out of step with the times. Williams does a good job of bringing alive the private Marshall, a necessary task, since the justice’s seclusion during the last 30 years of his life removed him from the public eye. A confirmed drinker and womanizer, Marshall was a charismatic man whose gift of gab was equally useful for negotiating political tightropes, neutralizing critics like J. Edgar Hoover, or putting bigoted southern sheriffs at ease. Williams is uncritical of Marshall’s personal flaws, but his reconstruction of Marshall makes for a lively and immensely valuable portrait of a first-rate legal mind and true American hero. (16 pages b&w photos not seen) (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-8129-2028-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Times/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1998
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
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