America Behind The Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans [Hardcover]

Henry Louis Gates (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 7, 2004

This portrait is painted largely by essays drawn from interviews Gates conducted with such notable names as Colin Powell, Morgan Freeman, Russell Simmons, Vernon Jordan, Alicia Keys, Bernie Mac and Quincy Jones and provides a fascinating and unique perspective viewed through the lens of four intrinsic elements of the African American experience - Black Hollywood, The Black Elite, The Ghetto and The New South. Henry Louis Gates' latest contribution to American scholarship examines the legacy of the Civil Rights movement, tracing the fate of black people since the death of Martin Luther King Jr.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Provocative and worthwhile' - KIRKUS REVIEWS

About the Author

Chair of African-American Studies at Harvard the author has helped broaden the discourse on African American literature, offering critical approaches that examine cultural traditions. He is a regular contributor to THE NEW YORKER

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books (January 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446532738
• ISBN-13: 978-0446532730
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,619,408 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hope for All of Us, January 22, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: America Behind The Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Hardcover)

About Gates' new book:
When families are torn apart and an culture is destroyed, the damage goes on for generations and generations. I have worked on an Indian reservation, and it took me a year to see the truth--that many of these people are caught in a cycle of poverty, addiction, and despair because the meaning of life, for them, was destroyed in 1860, and their society has never recovered.
Like the air we breathe, we are not even aware of the culture that supports our very lives until it is destroyed.
Likewise, slavery destroyed fatherhood and manhood by definition. If you want to find the roots of poverty and dependance and illegitimacy today in the black ghetto, look no further than the slave ships. Thus all Americans, as individuals, families, and yes--as a government--must intervene to save young black men, who are now overflowing our prisons. This books says it well. Please read it.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, But One Book Can't Cover All the Issues., January 27, 2004

By 

K. Lindsey "savvysweet" (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: America Behind The Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Hardcover)

I was very delighted to hear that Henry Louis Gates was releasing another book, so as usual I grabbed the first copy at my job. I read this book in two days, and I found it very interesting. I liked the way he divided the community into four sections. The sections that affected me the most were the Ebony Towers and Chicago's South Side. I loved the Ebony Towers section because those are the people that I look up to most in my life and they really inspire me, especially Colin Powell. Chicago's South Side was the saddest thing I have read to this date. It was the magnifying glass into what is wrong with the African-American community today. I have to agree with the previous poster that stated Gates needs to really think about classes being separated as the root of the problem because I disagree also. I have lived in a working class urban area since I was 10. I have never lived next door to a doctor, lawyer, or a corporate executive. That fact has never discouraged me from maintaining high academic standards, or from striving to do my best in all areas of my life. Why? Because I have parents! I have parents that are involved in every aspect of my life. They took time to expose me to things beyond the hood, they nurtured me, and they were hard on me. Because of their determination combined with mines, their daughter will be a college graduate in May 2004. I believe any set of good parents would do that for their child. That is the biggest problem in the community today. Where are all the parents? In the Chicago chapter, I saw nothing but dependency and hopelessness. I can't blame anyone but them, not the black doctor that decided to move to the suburbs. Instead of focusing on why successful African-Americans do not live by less fortunate African-Americans, focus on the ways they do try to give back to the community. I know that many do not, but there are a large number who do. If anyone wants to make it out of the ghetto, they can if they really wanted to. Like my title said, the issues are deeper than this book can ever get. This was a nice effort and I appreciated the honest dialogue. I look forward to seeing the documentary.
P.S. Kudos to John Singleton for giving the NAACP the finger. They are so consumed with Hollywood's artistic endeavours, that they forget about the ordinary citizens that really need them.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pleasure to read, yet thought provoking too, April 4, 2004

By 

AfroAmericanHeritage (Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: America Behind The Color Line: Dialogues with African Americans (Hardcover)

The media often tries to appear balanced and diverse by bringing on somebody to present the "black point of view." As this book of dialogues amply demonstrates, there is no such thing...there are only African Americans with opinions as diverse as the individuals themselves.

Gates wondered "how far have we come since the Civil Rights Movement." To get some sense, he interviewed movers and shakers like Jesse Jackson and Vernon Jordan, but also those the Great Society left behind, like Kalais Chiron Hunt in the Cook County Jail and residents of Chicago's infamous Robert Taylor Homes . Familiar entertainment figures like Bernie Mac, Alicia Keys and Don Cheadle weigh in, with refreshingly candid interviews not commonly found in Hollywood hype. We meet activists on the front lines, like Lenora Fulani who uses theater to teach kids how to succeed in business. And we meet everyday people like Dierdre and Jerald Wolff who joined the new Southern Migration by moving to an affluent, predominantly black community in Atlanta, and Lura and Chris, a biracial couple living in Birmingham..

I'm always impressed with Gate's ability to capture his subject's words without imposing his personality...he shares his own story in the introduction. Each of the 39 stories is told with clarity and fluidity; you read one and can't resist moving right into the next.

A thought provoking book and for many white readers, a glimpse of black America not represented elsewhere.

Curator, AfroAmericanHeritage dot com