Being somebody & Black besides : an untold memoir of midcentury Black life / George B. Nesbitt ; edited by Prexy Nesbit and Zeb Larson ; with an original foreword by St. Clair Drake and a contemporary foreword by Imani Perry.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Nesbitt, George B., 1912-2002, author.

Contributor:

Nesbitt, Prexy, editor.

Larson, Robert Zebulun, editor.

Drake, St. Clair, writer of foreword.

Perry, Imani, 1972- writer of foreword.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Nesbitt, George B., 1912-2002.

Nesbitt, George B.

African Americans--Biography.

African Americans.

African Americans--Illinois--Biography.

African American lawyers--Biography.

African American lawyers.

Civil rights workers--United States--Biography.

Civil rights workers.

African Americans--History--20th century.

Race discrimination--United States--History--20th century.

Race discrimination.

Genre:

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (355 pages)

Other Title:

Being somebody and Black besides

Place of Publication:

Chicago, Illinois ; London : The University of Chicago Press, [2021]

Summary:

An immersive multigenerational memoir that recounts the hopes, injustices, and triumphs of a Black family fighting for access to the American dream in the twentieth century. The late Chicagoan George Nesbitt could perhaps best be described as an ordinary man with an extraordinary gift for storytelling. In his newly uncovered memoir—written fifty years ago, yet never published—he chronicles in vivid and captivating detail the story of how his upwardly mobile Midwestern Black family lived through the tumultuous twentieth century. Spanning three generations, Nesbitt’s tale starts in 1906 with the Great Migration and ends with the Freedom Struggle in the 1960s. He describes his parents’ journey out of the South, his struggle against racist military authorities in World War II, the promise and peril of Cold War America, the educational and professional accomplishments he strove for and achieved, the lost faith in integration, and, despite every hardship, the unwavering commitment by three generations of Black Americans to fight for a better world. Through all of it—with his sharp insights, nuance, and often humor—we see a family striving to lift themselves up in a country that is working to hold them down. Nesbitt’s memoir includes two insightful forewords: one by John Gibbs St. Clair Drake (1911–90), a pioneer in the study of African American life, the other a contemporary rumination by noted Black studies scholar Imani Perry. A rare first-person, long-form narrative about Black life in the twentieth century, Being Somebody and Black Besides is a remarkable literary-historical time capsule that will delight modern readers.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations

Foreword

A Note on St. Clair Drake’s “Foreword”

Foreword to the George Nesbitt Manuscript

A Note on the Manuscript

Preface

1. Our Family’s Great Migration

2. A Family Which Stayed Together

3. Learning to Be Somebody

4. The Comfort of My Negroness

5. Going to University

6. Town and Gown

7. Lawyer by Day, Redcap at Night

8. The Army and Its Apartheid

9. The Ugly Specter of Race Discrimination

10. Poking at the Good, White Liberals

11. An Exceptional Family in the Lawndale Ghetto

12. The Future of Our People

Postscript

Acknowledgments

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

0-226-71683-X

OCLC:

1302165716