Tony Lindsay Presents... Julian Mayfield

Julian Mayfield wrote fiction about life in Harlem during the nineteen fifties. Two of his novels The Hit and The Long Night were compiled into a single book by The Northeastern Library of Black Literature.  Mayfield’s fiction skills lay in his almost abrasive talent of recording life as fiction. The streets of Harlem during the fifties walk the pages of his work. What one may turn away from in life is eagerly read in Mayfield’s work. Unexpectedly, community is the theme in both novels, and in each Mayfield’s creative talent allows the reader see the power of a cohesive community.

In The Hit, a main character, Hubert Cooley is portrayed as a man who places himself above all the occupants of Harlem including his wife. Although he works maintaining others’ apartments, he feels he is above those in his community and his family, but what the reader quickly summarizes is that the dream of hitting the “number” is just as big for him as it for every resident, if not bigger. Cooley’s life and dreams match his community but he doesn’t see it, and Mayfield writes this lack of vision as Cooley’s tragic flaw. Add to that his self-ostracizing statue, and that makes Mayfield’s Cooley an unforgettable character.  

 Mayfield displays this misguided belief in self by having Cooley arrested and thrown into the drunk tank while dressed in a business suit. Throughout the work the readers sees the insanity of self-ostracizing for an African American living in Harlem. Cooley foolishly puts himself above and outside of others in his community, “Hubert Cooley had but one obsession, and that was to leave family, home, and Harlem as far behind as possible, and create a new life for himself” (Mayfield 8).

When Cooley final does hit the number, and the community he so despises begins to respect him, he is beaten from his rewards by another who views himself above the community. Mayfield artfully juxtapose the two characters (a numbers runner and a maintenance man) to bring home his theme of community unity. In the second portion of the book, The Long Night, ten year old Fred Brown, Steely, takes the reader through a tortuous Harlem night.

Steely quickly learns that those who appear cool and popular in the Harlem community are not necessarily the dependable and responsible folks.  The leaders of the gang he so proud to be a member of are responsible for his long night on the streets of Harlem. Steely was given a task by his mother, after failing at the task he decides he can recoup his failure on the streets.

 His night with the dwellers of the dark streets of Harlem reduces Steely to petty crime attempts and to a decision no ten year old boy should have to make. Mayfield’s prose talent holds the reader through a night most would not witness, but the story holds and gracefully relieves with a surprises ending.   

In these two novels, The Hit and The Long Night, the theme of community is consistent, and Julian Mayfield skills as writer are apparent.  Harlem in the nineteen fifties comes to life in both works.   

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.

Tony Lindsay Presents... Octavia Butler

In literature, as in other disciplines, there are trailblazers. Writers that are ahead of others, writers whose works offer a foundation for future writers to build upon; Octavia Estelle Butler was such a writer.

In her novel, ‘Parable of the Sower’ she writes of a near future, a time where most water is sold, and a time where people live in gated guarded communities to survive. She writes about a time where American greed replaces compassion, a time when most labor only garners one enough to live, a time when people not behind the walls of gated communities survive by murder, theft, the use of drugs, prostitution, cannibalism, and slavery. She introduces the reader to this world through the eyes and heart of a fifteen year old protagonist, Lauren Oya Olamina.

Lauren is allowing a new religion to form through her observations and experiences; through journaling she is creating the beginning of EARTHSEED: THE BOOKS OF THE LIVING which is the text of the forming religion. Raised as a preacher’s kid in a time of few morals, Lauren has a different perspective on life, and the reader quickly understands that their guide through this world is more than a teenager,

At least three years ago, my father’s God stopped being my God. His church stopped being my church. And yet, today, because I’m a coward, I let myself be initiated into a church. I let my father baptize me in all three names of that God who isn’t mine any more.

My God has another name. (7)

Butler’s ‘Parable of the Sower’ is disturbing in its possibility. The novel begins in the year 2024 a future close enough to be recognizable, and that is the gift of the novel; it works as a warning,

I brought three of the cheap, multipurpose sleepsacks-big, tough storage bags, and the preferred bedding of all the more affluent homeless. The country was full of people who could earn or steal food and water, but could not even rent a cot. (174)

            Literary reviewers and critics hail Octavia Butler as an award winning author; she has won the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Langston Hughes Medal, and Nebula and Hugo awards. There is no denying her talent. In addition, she is the first African American author to gain international prominence in the science fiction genre, a genre dominated by white males. Octavia E. Butler was truly a trailblazer.  

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.

Tony Lindsay Presents... Toni Morrison

Only a few American writers have won both a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize; one African American writer has this honor, Tony Morrison: Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for fiction Beloved and The Noble Prize for Literature in 1993. However, as a writer her prose is not limited to fiction.

‘What Moves at the Margins’ is a collection of essays, critiques, and social commentary that reveals Morrison’s generous heart and gives insight into what she considers a writer’s responsibility. The collection offers a watchful eye on the future, recommends some outstanding writers, and advises on the power of language. As with her career, her political stands and concerns for those living on the margins are quite clear in the work.

From her 1984 essay “Rootedness: The Ancestor As Foundation” Morrison writes,
"If anything I do, in the way of writing novels (or whatever I write) isn’t about the village or the community or about you, then it is not about anything. I am not interested in indulging myself in some private, closed exercise of my imagination that fulfills only the obligation of my personal, dreams-which is to say yes, the work must be political. It must have that as its thrust. That’s a pejorative term in critical circles now: if a work of art has any political influence in it, somehow it’s tainted. My feeling is just the opposite: if it has none, it is tainted."(64)

Chloe Anthony Wofford, Toni Morrison, is a national treasure. A valuable resource to students, scholars, critics, and thinkers in this country and the world, but most importantly, she is a treasure to readers of today and tomorrow.

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.

Tony Lindsay Presents... Walter Mosley's Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation

In The Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation, Walter Mosley offers brutal statements in regards to America’s political and economic systems. He combines the two systems through the labor of the people and their ignorance concerning the worth of their production. He argues that Americans are addicted to the idea of being an American, and that they are unaware of this addiction.

The idea of being an American citizen, one who has a say in the functioning of the government, one who is fairly paid for their labor, one who can afford health care, one who can pay their mortgage and eat, and one who knows their personal worth to the country is what most citizens believe they have.

But, Mosley argues that vast numbers of Americans are not citizens but denizens. Merely inhabitants of the country, the working cogs in a system with minimal rewards. And due to being denied true citizenry, the denizens abuse substances and are in need of psychotherapy. The denizens are victims of Capitalism and the profit seeking heartless “Joes” that run the system. “Recognizing our unconscious sorrow, the system of wealth has offered to sell us addictive products, both physical and psychological, to console us on the long nights of isolation and, for the most, unrecognized rage” (5).

Mosley argues, convincingly, that the majority of Americans have been negatively acted upon by Capitalism, and placed outside of any decision making powers that affect the whole country; thereby, stripping them of the inheritance due from their forefather’s labor. Believing that the contributions of a citizen’s forefather should earn one some political muscle, Mosley reports that those accounts have been nullified by Capitalism and the rich “Joes” who control the systems.

Mosley, “In truth, capitalism is closer to totalitarianism and fascism than it is to the democratic process; that’s why unions appeared and why Congress once led a campaign against monopolies and cartels. Democracy has nothing to do with the decision-making process in the organization of capital. The wealthy would like us to think it does. That’s why they build monuments to themselves, name foundations after their families rather than after the people they set out to help. The only affinity that the wealthy have with democracy is their money and their control of the media. They tell us the news, dress up the candidate, set the value of our dollars and our labor until the poorest among us join the army to slaughter other poor people in the name of freedom while the wealthy are safe and richer each day” (51).

The work suggests that Americans will not move from denizens to citizens until they see the truth of their situations and start speaking the truth to each other and themselves. Honest communication among the masses begins with understandable communication. Americans must move past the divisions of dialects, religious teachings, education, age, and gender differences that have worked to separate them in the past to become a cohesive unit to truly affect the decision making process of the country. The well being of denizens who wish to become citizens cannot be left in the hands of politicians directed by Capitalism and profit.  
 
To truly become a citizen, to be paid fairly for one’s labor, to understand one’s worth to the country, one must bring about change; and this change is depended upon a revelation in the thinking of the denizens. A revelation brought on by thinking outside of the media influence of Capitalism. What Walter Mosley does in this work is lay out a step by step plan in accomplishing this new thought. He makes valid suggestions that he hopes well improve America for all its citizens, not just the wealthy.

Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation is an informative read that at times is a bit brutal for those who are unaware of their denizen status, but the information is much needed.

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.

Tony Lindsay Presents...James Alan McPherson

James Alan McPherson’s short story collection, ‘Elbow Room,’ won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1978. He was the first African American to win the Pulitzer for fiction. The collection is composed of a dozen practical and reality based stories with each causing the reader to evaluate the everyday. The stories are easily read, but yet the themes are profoundly expressed.  One quickly understands why the collection garnered serious literary attention.

The characters in the collection stand from the page and walk into the imagination. None of stories have a predictable ending, and ironies vine through and around the lives McPherson created. Issues of societal perceptions: race, sexism, and caste span through the work with the touch of a writer who lives and observes.

One of the most startling character descriptions in the text refers the scared face of a woman:

"The scar still fascinated me. It was a wicked black mark that ran from her brow down over her left eyelid, skirting her nose but curving over and through both lips before ending almost in the center of her chin. The scar was thick and black and crisscrossed with a network of old stitch patterns, as if some meticulous madman had first attempted to carve a perfect half-circle in her flesh, and then decided to embellish his handiwork. It was so grotesque a mark that one had the feeling it was the art of no human hand and could be peeled off like so much soiled putty. But this was a surgeon’s office and the scar was real. It was as real. It was as real as the honey blond wig she wore, as real as her purple pantsuit. I studied her approvingly. Such women have a natural leaning toward the abstract expression of themselves. Their styles have private meaning, advertise secrete distillations of their souls. Their figures, and their disfigurations, make meaningful statements. Subjectively, this woman was the true sister of the man who knows how to look while driving a purple Cadillac. (119-120)"

This except is from “The Story of a Scar” a passionate tale of forlorn love, prejudice, and jealousy, but the prejudice is not the prejudging of a race but of image and appearance. As with every story in the collection, the reader is taken to an unexpected end and coaxed into looking at everyday life a bit different.  ‘Elbow Room’ is a must add to any fiction collection.      


Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.

Tony Lindsay Presents... A Tribute to Maya Angelou

The Black Arts Movement combined arts and politics, and power was identified in non-traditional sources by talented writers of the era. In Maya Angelou’s autobiography, I know Why the Caged Bird Sings, power is held in the hands of a very memorable woman.

The most powerful woman in the work is Angelou’s paternal grandmother: affectionately known as Momma, neighborly known as Sister Henderson, and formally known as Mrs. Henderson. This grandmother held enough power to save a racist dentist’s building and to instill enough mother wit within her children and grandchildren to last a life time. Angelou writes,

People spoke of Momma as a good-looking woman and some, who remembered her youth, said she used to be right pretty. I saw only her power and strength. She was taller than any woman in my personal world, and her hands were so large they could span my head from ear to ear. Her voice was soft only because she chose to keep it so. In church, when she was called upon to sing, she seemed to pull out plugs from behind her jaws and the huge, almost rough sound would pour over the listeners and throb in the air. (46-47)

Beyond her powerful physical presence, Momma’s personality drew respect and admiration, but Maya recalls, “Knowing Momma, I knew that I never knew Momma. Her African-bush secretiveness and suspiciousness had been compounded by slavery and confirmed by centuries of promises made and promises broken.” As her grandchild, Maya was protected from much of what her grandmother knew and experienced. Even when they shared experiences her grandmother would shield her.

When Maya was refused services by a dentist, who owed Momma a favor, her imagined recollection of the event differed greatly from what Momma said occurred;

Dentist Lincoln got right uppity. Said he’d rather put his hand in a dog’s mouth. And I reminded him of the favor, he brushed it off like a piece of lint. Well, I sent Sister (Maya) downstairs and went inside. I hadn’t never been in his office before, but I found the door to where he takes out teeth, and him and the nurse was in there thick as thieves. I just stood there till he caught sight of me . . . He said, ‘Annie, I done tole you, I ain’t gonna mess around in no niggah’s mouth.’ I said, ‘Somebody got to do it then,’ and he said, ‘Take her to Texarkana to the colored dentist’ and that’s when I said, ‘If you paid me my money I could afford to take her,’ He said, ‘It’s all been paid.’ I tole him everthing but the interest had been paid. He said, ‘Twasn’t no interst.’ I said, ‘Tis now. I’ll take ten dollars as payment in full.’ . . . (93)

Mrs. Henderson was not to be denied respect from any person, and if disrespect was attempted, she was able manipulate and balance the injustice to her favor.

It was the writers of the Black Arts Movement who offered readers characters like Sister Henderson who added power to the movement. Maya Angelou’s literary portrait of her grandmother is that of a powerful black woman, which was what the movement required. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is an exemplary autobiography of the Black Arts Movement.             

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.

Tony Lindsay Presents... Haki R. Madhubuti

A poet has many tools: the sonnet, the ballad, the Haiku, rhyme, metaphor, allusion, but the hammer amongst these devices and structures is the theme – the message. The message is what drives the poem into the reader’s heart and mind.

First Impressions on a Poet’s Death
       (for Conrad Kent Rogers)  
Blk/poets die
From not being
read
& from, maybe,
too much
leg.
some drank
themselves
into
non-poets,
but most
poets who poet
seldom
die
from
overexposure.

Haki R. Madhubuti’s work ‘Liberation Narratives’ is a collection of poems that will leave a reader’s head ringing and heart pounding from the hard hitting and thought prying themes in each poem.



Only a Few Left
        (America’s Pushkin sings no more
           -To Langston Hughes)

The time has come
when bravery
is not he
who is abundant
with heroic deeds
for the state.
Bravery is that
little black man
 over there
surrounded by people
he’s talking-
bravery lies in his
words.
he’s telling the
truth
they say he’s
a
poet.


Wasted Life
He spent fifty years
of his life
 trying to convince
white people  that
he was as good as they were.
he not only failed
but
didn’t learn anything
from the experience except
to strategically forget his name and
lie in long sentences.

After reading Madhubuti’s ‘Liberation Narratives’ one experiences the writer’s deep love and commitment for and to his people. If this collection of poems was said to have a single motif, it would be the uplifting of a people.  This is not one to miss, for any student of literature or Black culture ‘Liberation Narratives’ is a must have.

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013.  His new book EMOTIONAL DRIPPINGS is available now on Amazon.com. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2. 

Tony Lindsay Presents... Ernest J. Gaines

Craft, for a writer of fiction, consists of the ability to create a story that suspends disbelief. In the book, ‘Mozart and Leadbelly’, Ernest J. Gaines states, “A representative of Newsweek asked me to send the editors of the magazine a picture of Miss Jane Pittman to be used with a review of the novel. I had to inform her that I could not, since Miss Jane is a creation of my imagination”.

Throughout his career Gaines has brought life to his characters and the places where his fiction unravels. Just as the reporter requested a picture of Miss Jane Pitman, many have gone to the map in an attempt to locate Bayonne, Louisiana . . . another fictional but life like creation of the griot Ernest James Gaines.   Few writers, who have achieved acclaim, are embedded in their cultural past with an eye on the future. Seldom do successful novelists teach due to love of community. Rare does the celebrity scribe pay homage to his ancestors. Those that do are not merely bestselling authors, but griots.

When one begins reading ‘Mozart and Leadbelly’ it becomes obvious that instructions for living a writer’s life are being given.  The reader is told to: expect rejection, read, never stop writing well, value past life experiences, find the profound in the simple, love and learn from elders, and “howl” out against injustice. Perhaps, these instructions are not limited to writers but should be considered as advice from a griot to all of his community.  The work, ‘Mozart and Leadbelly,’ is dived into two sections; the first being personal essays that give insight into this great American talent, and the second being short stories which are theme and place driven. Any student of literature or life would be well served by reading this book.

***

Tony Lindsay is an award-winning author and adjunct professor at Chicago State University. His book ONE DEAD DOCTOR was chosen by Conversations Book Club as one of its Top 100 Books of 2012. Lindsay was named Conversations Author of the Year 2012-2013. He can be reached at tonylinsay7045@sbcglobal.net or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/tony.linssay2.