Magisterial investigation of black America by a white reporter for
The Washington Post; portions have appeared in Life magazine and
the Washington Post Sunday Magazine. The seed for this book was
planted when Harrington, who's married to a black woman and has two
mixed-race children, overheard a racist joke while sitting in his
dentist's chair. Instantly, "I was touched and humbled,
converted...I knew in my heart that I didn't know arching about
race." To educate himself, he undertook a 25,000-mile voyage around
the country, talking and listening to hundreds of blacks, from
sharecroppers and cops to college professors and writers. Some of
the visits were personal: Harrington dropped by his wife's family
farm, where he heard his father-in-law's memories of segregation;
later, he visited two black acquaintances from his college days,
both former radicals. Mostly, though, Harrington met strangers. A
few were celebrities: Ice-T, who urged young blacks to work within
the system; a diffident Spike Lee; the "seriously giddy" Dori
Sanders, author of Clover; Ishmael Reed; James McPherson, who
saluted "decents" of all races. The unknowns ranged from a
96-year-old in Arkansas who remembered lynchings to gang members on
the West Coast to a saintly volunteer at a children's hospital in
Detroit. Occasionally, the talk shocked Harrison: Several blacks
complained about black indolence and crime; young black men found
black women "too manly." Blacks, the author notes, speak a
different language than whites, communicating through rhythm as
well as content. At journey's end, Harrison found himself "leas
frightened" of blacks, admiring their humor, skepticism, and
resourcefulness. He contends that the "white liberal piety" of
black-white sameness is a lie; that racial distrust runs deep; and
that it's up to whites to solve the problem. Too long by far, but
an engrossing, multilayered portrait - as well as a touching
personal odyssey. (Kirkus Reviews)
One day in the dentist's office journalist Walt Harrington heard
a casual racist joke that left him enraged. Married to a black
woman, Harrington is the father of two biracial children. His
experience in the dentist's office made him realize not only that
the joke was about his own children but also that he really knew
very little about what it was like to be a black person in
America.
After this rude awakening, Harrington set off on a twenty-
five-thousand-mile journey through black America, talking with
scores of black and white people along the way, including an old
sharecropper, a city police chief, a jazz trumpeter, a convicted
murderer, a welfare mother, and a corporate mogul. In "Crossings, "
winner of the Gustavus Myers Award for the Study of Human Rights,
he relates what he learned as he listened.
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