Product Description
Josh Alan Friedman (Tales of Times Square) was the only white boy to attend New York’s last segregated school. It was adjacent to Glen Cove’s now-forgotten Back Road Hill--the grimmest Negro shantytown on Long Island. On the tenth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, a large delegation of NAACP foot soldiers from the South descended upon the Back Road. This was perhaps the only instance where poor Black folks from Mississippi chartered a bus to protest conditions up North. Unbeknownst to the kids, the NAACP lobbied to close their school, finally succeeding in 1966.
While Glen Cove’s history summons up lore of the Gold Coast robber barons—grand estates of F.W. Woolworth, J.P. Morgan, the Pratts of Standard Oil—Josh Alan Friedman reveals the astonishing Black ghetto that was hidden from view. Lost to history, it was eradicated during President Johnson’s War on Poverty.
Brought back to life is Bobo, Josh’s closest school chum and role model to ruin. Bobo single-handedly sets back progress for Black children on morning TV, after his disastrous appearance as the first Negro child on Wonderama. A casualty of the “Disruptive Child Clause,” Bobo is expelled from fourth grade. We meet the tragic and smelly Mumsy, who trains Josh as a shoeshine boy at Penn Station. And Mumsy’s Aunt Nellie, who loves white people so much, she gives up her seat on buses, apologizing for Rosa Parks. And also among Black Cracker’s array of terrifying women, is Legertha, who wants to kill white people. She rouses the mothers of Back Road Hill into a mob, whereby young Josh barely survives a lynching.
A Northern sidebar to the civil-rights era, Black Cracker tackles the taboo subject of reverse discrimination. An “autobiographical novel” based in fact, you can read it now on Kindle—providing the missing link in an evolving canon of Afro-American literature.
While Glen Cove’s history summons up lore of the Gold Coast robber barons—grand estates of F.W. Woolworth, J.P. Morgan, the Pratts of Standard Oil—Josh Alan Friedman reveals the astonishing Black ghetto that was hidden from view. Lost to history, it was eradicated during President Johnson’s War on Poverty.
Brought back to life is Bobo, Josh’s closest school chum and role model to ruin. Bobo single-handedly sets back progress for Black children on morning TV, after his disastrous appearance as the first Negro child on Wonderama. A casualty of the “Disruptive Child Clause,” Bobo is expelled from fourth grade. We meet the tragic and smelly Mumsy, who trains Josh as a shoeshine boy at Penn Station. And Mumsy’s Aunt Nellie, who loves white people so much, she gives up her seat on buses, apologizing for Rosa Parks. And also among Black Cracker’s array of terrifying women, is Legertha, who wants to kill white people. She rouses the mothers of Back Road Hill into a mob, whereby young Josh barely survives a lynching.
A Northern sidebar to the civil-rights era, Black Cracker tackles the taboo subject of reverse discrimination. An “autobiographical novel” based in fact, you can read it now on Kindle—providing the missing link in an evolving canon of Afro-American literature.
About the Author
In 1987, writer-guitarist Josh Alan Friedman sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads (the Crossroads of the World--Broadway & 42nd Street) and moved to Texas. He'd just written TALES OF TIMES SQUARE, a cult classic. An Expanded Edition with new chapters was recently released, while the still-unfinished movie of TALES has played 35 film festivals. Josh's latest book is BLACK CRACKER, the story of his tumultuous childhood as the only white boy at Long Island's last segregated school. In 2008: TELL THE TRUTH UNTIL THEY BLEED: COMING CLEAN IN THE DIRTY WORLD OF BLUES AND ROCK 'N' ROLL. Before that: WHEN SEX WAS DIRTY; I, GOLDSTEIN: MY SCREWED LIFE (with Al Goldstein); NOW DIG THIS: THE UNSPEAKABLE WRITINGS OF TERRY SOUTHERN (co-editor). Josh also set off satirical fires and lawsuits as writer-half of the Friedman Bros, the most feared cartooning duo of the late '70s and '80s. Two anthologies remain in print, featuring the art of Josh's brother, Drew Friedman: WARTS AND ALL, and ANY SIMILARITY TO PERSONS LIVING OR DEAD IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. On the music front, as "Josh Alan," he barnstormed the state of Texas for 20 years, rocking whole arenas with his Guild D-40. Copping three DALLAS OBSERVER Music Awards for Best Acoustic Act, he released four albums: FAMOUS & POOR, THE WORST!, BLACKS 'N' JEWS (the title of which became a documentary on Josh's life) and JOSH ALAN BAND.
