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Books by Marcus Bruce
Christian
Song of the Black Valiants: Marching Tempo
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High Ground: A Collection of Poems /
Negro soldiers in the Battle of New Orleans
I am New
Orleans: A Poem
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Negro Iron Workers of Louisiana: 1718-1900 /
The Liberty Monument
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DN15
On
An Evening at the Cinema -- Japan & Georgia
[note
dated, but probably 1943 or 1944]
For
the Man it had been a hard day at University Hill. Not a long
day that one could put his hands upon and say "this is the
trouble," but a day in which a gnawing uneasiness,
dissatisfaction and bitterness merged in one soft rankling
bitterness. For the life of him he could not put his finger upon
the main cause of it all.
And
the feeling did not lose itself when the Brown Girl called him
and apologized for some silly tiff that they had had during the
morning. She had said that she was not going to see him that
night--that she was going to the theater, and finally ended by
asking him if he wanted to go too. She had promised to buy some
things from Solari's so that he could have something to eat
while in the theater. She said a sandwich. He said no that it
would be bad taste to eat a sandwich while in the theater, but
that she could get him something to eat when they got home and
also a muffin or two to eat while in the theater. This he
planned upon eating surreptitiously.
He
was at University Place ahead of time. He loitered at Silver's
Book Store, looking over the offerings in the show window. All
sorts of books. Among them highly featured was "This is My
Best," the book from which Brown Girl had been reading a
poem by Archibald MacLeish the night before. There was a
beautiful and ingenious display of a "Tree Grown in
Brooklyn," and over in the other side of the case was
"Strange Fruit," and "Black Boy."
Yeh,
they featured "Black Boy" alone with the others. That
was something for Silver's where a clerk had shown some
reluctance to give the proper respect to the Lawrences.
He
[Christian} looked and then passed on, thinking that Brown Girl
might be waiting for him in the sort of a alleyway by which
Negroes had to go up to the seats in the balcony. She was not
there, and while he hesitated, she came up
University Place, walking that slightly knock-kneed, walk
that she had. He turned and deliberately compared her with two
white women in the rear of her. Not bad as a comparison, he
thought. Then they went inside.
God
Is My Co-Pilot, was the name of the picture. But he was sick
of the picture when he took his seat at the part of it where the
American Japanese called the flying opponent a Yank and the
aviator answered back that he was not a Yank--that he was from
Georgia. Gosh he [Christian} knew that he would not like the
picture if anybody in it was from Georgia and boasted about it.
Aw,
hell, why didn't them fool Japanese stay out of this war and let
it be a white man's war. The slant-eyed bastards. What good did
it do them? Boy, they had the one golden chance to lower forever
and collectively the white man's pride, but no, they must try to
build up a world on the same snobbery that the white man had
built up his. Boy, they were dumb.
When
at last the Georgian sent the Japanese plane roaring to earth in
flames, his feelings were of a mixed sort. He would have
preferred it had they not consigned the Japanese to death. This
was a race war, and it was going to breed untold harm he
thought. He came out in a growing grouch that walking with the
Brown Girl did nothing to erase. There were no answers to
anything--at least there seemed to be none at times. He and Brown Girl walked slowly home.
<<<---Previous
Next--16->> * *
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Selected Letters
Selected Diary Notes Memories of Marcus B. Christian
(Cains) Christian's
BioBibliographical Record Introduction to I AM NEW
ORLEANS
A
Theory of a Black Aesthetic Magpies,
Goddesses, & Black Male Identity
Activist Works on Next Level of Change
Intro to I Am New
Orleans
Letter from Dillard University
A
Labor of Genuine Love
Letter of Gift of
Photos
Letters from
LSU and Skip Gates * * *
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Negro Iron Workers of Louisiana: 1718-1900
By Marcus Bruce
Christian
Study of the blacksmith
tradition and New Orleans famous lace
balconies and fences.
Acclaimed during his life as the unofficial
poet laureate of the New Orleans
African-American community, Marcus Christian
recorded a distinguished career as
historian, journalist, and literary scholar.
He was a contributor to Pelican's
Gumbo Ya Ya, and also wrote many
articles that appeared in numerous
newspapers, journals, and general-interest
publications. |
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Audio:
My Story, My Song (Featuring blues guitarist Walter Wolfman Washington)
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Hopes and Prospects
By Noam Chomsky
In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky
surveys the dangers and prospects of our
early twenty-first century. Exploring
challenges such as the growing gap
between North and South, American
exceptionalism (including under
President Barack Obama), the fiascos of
Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.-Israeli
assault on Gaza, and the recent
financial bailouts, he also sees hope
for the future and a way to move
forward—in the democratic wave in Latin
America and in the global solidarity
movements that suggest "real progress
toward freedom and justice." Hopes and
Prospects is essential reading for
anyone who is concerned about the
primary challenges still facing the
human race. "This is a classic Chomsky
work: a bonfire of myths and lies,
sophistries and delusions. Noam Chomsky
is an enduring inspiration all over the
world—to millions, I suspect—for the
simple reason that he is a truth-teller
on an epic scale. I salute him." —John
Pilger
In dissecting the rhetoric and logic of
American empire and class domination, at
home and abroad, Chomsky continues a
longstanding and crucial work of
elucidation and activism . . .the
writing remains unswervingly rational
and principled throughout, and lends
bracing impetus to the real alternatives
before us.—Publisher's
Weekly
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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The White Masters
of the World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The
Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
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January 1, 1804 -- The Founding
of Haiti
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