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Title
Review of Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family written by Walter Spearman
Creator
Spearman, Walter
Source
Greensboro Record
Date
November 24, 1956
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Text
Text
Тhе Literary Lantern
By Walter Spearman
Three of the month’s most interesting new books come from three Negro women writers, "My Lord, What A Morning” by Marian Anderson of Philadelphia (The Viking Press, New York. 312 pp. 55); "Thursday’s Child” by Eartha Kitt of South Carolina (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York. 350 pp. $3.95); and "Proud Shoes" by Pauli Murray of Durham (Harper and Brothers, New York. 276 pp. $3.50). The three books are completely different, but each fascinating in its own way.
In "My Lord, What A Morning” Contralto Anderson writes simply and honestly of her musical life and her private life, of her mother who came from Virginia, of her childhood in Philadelphia where she delivered laundry for her mother, of her interest in singing and her long years of hard and serious study, of her triumphs in Europe and America, of her Easter Sunday concert at Lincoln Memorial when the D.A.R. refused to let her sing in Constitution Hall, of her debut at the Metropolitan. She writes first of all about music, which is her career, but she also writes about racial problems, about
tolerance and intolerance, about the achievements of other members of her race.
The liveliest of the three books is undoubtedly "Thursday’s Child” by the Eartha Kitt who started her career in the cotton fields of South Carolina, where her family lived in poverty and ignorance, but reached international success as a singer In European and American night clubs, in the movie, "New Faces,” and then in the Broadway play, "Mrs. Patterson.” There is little reticence and less dignity in this autobiography and very little writing that could be called literature,
but there is an engrossing success story and an entertaining account of night club life. Miss Kitt also met racial problems, but she does not discuss them with the dignity of Miss Anderson. Her recounting of a love affair with a man whom she identifies only as "paleface” and of her experience on the stage with Orson Welles when he savagely bit her seems a long way from the cotton fields of South Carolina.
The best written of the three books is Pauli Murray’s "Proud Shoes,” which not only includes a vivid account of the Durham childhood of this talented Negro lawyer, poet and editor, but the revealing North Carolina story of her grandparents, Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald.
Grandfather Robert Fitzgerald fought for the Union in the Civil War, then came to North Carolina as a missionary among the Negro freedmen and opened a school at Woodside in Orange County, near Hillsboro. Grandmother Cornelia was an octoroon and a slave, daughter of a well-known North Carolina plantation owner and legislator and his beautiful Negro slave. Cornelia was raised by her father's sister, Miss Mary Ruffin Smith, for whom one of the University of North Carolina dormitories is named. Cornelia was proud of her white ancestry and proud of the shoes she was allowed to wear every day, not just on Sunday.
Miss Murray writes vividly and expertly, with a controlled emotion underlying her story. Standing erect in her own "proud shoes,” she has written what she terms "the story of an American family” and makes it tender, touching, sympathetic and occasionally indignant
Langston Hughes
"I Wonder As I Wander” by Langston Hughes is rightly described as "an autobiographical
journey." (Rinehart and Co., New York. 405 pp. $6) The distinguished Negro poet-
playwright - novelist wanders over the face of the earth—New York, California, Mississippi, Moscow, China, Cuba. Hawaii, Samarkand—and as he wanders, he also wonders—about what it means to be an American, what it means to be a writer, what it means to be a Negro. He writes with fervor, humor, compassion and a constant liveliness that sweeps readers along with him.
He lectures throughout the South, reading his own poems; he goes to Moscow to make a Russian movie about race problems in America—and learns about the Soviets; he visits Chapel Hill and is entertained by two students, Tony Buttita and Milton Abernethy, who run one of his poems In “Contempo" and raise a storm; he goes to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War. Wherever he goes he is observant, interested in the people, and finds new subjects to write about ‘I Wonder As I Wander" is excellent.
Early winter novels are varied enough to appeal to almost any reading taste. "Deluxe Tour” by
By Walter Spearman
Three of the month’s most interesting new books come from three Negro women writers, "My Lord, What A Morning” by Marian Anderson of Philadelphia (The Viking Press, New York. 312 pp. 55); "Thursday’s Child” by Eartha Kitt of South Carolina (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, New York. 350 pp. $3.95); and "Proud Shoes" by Pauli Murray of Durham (Harper and Brothers, New York. 276 pp. $3.50). The three books are completely different, but each fascinating in its own way.
In "My Lord, What A Morning” Contralto Anderson writes simply and honestly of her musical life and her private life, of her mother who came from Virginia, of her childhood in Philadelphia where she delivered laundry for her mother, of her interest in singing and her long years of hard and serious study, of her triumphs in Europe and America, of her Easter Sunday concert at Lincoln Memorial when the D.A.R. refused to let her sing in Constitution Hall, of her debut at the Metropolitan. She writes first of all about music, which is her career, but she also writes about racial problems, about
tolerance and intolerance, about the achievements of other members of her race.
The liveliest of the three books is undoubtedly "Thursday’s Child” by the Eartha Kitt who started her career in the cotton fields of South Carolina, where her family lived in poverty and ignorance, but reached international success as a singer In European and American night clubs, in the movie, "New Faces,” and then in the Broadway play, "Mrs. Patterson.” There is little reticence and less dignity in this autobiography and very little writing that could be called literature,
but there is an engrossing success story and an entertaining account of night club life. Miss Kitt also met racial problems, but she does not discuss them with the dignity of Miss Anderson. Her recounting of a love affair with a man whom she identifies only as "paleface” and of her experience on the stage with Orson Welles when he savagely bit her seems a long way from the cotton fields of South Carolina.
The best written of the three books is Pauli Murray’s "Proud Shoes,” which not only includes a vivid account of the Durham childhood of this talented Negro lawyer, poet and editor, but the revealing North Carolina story of her grandparents, Robert and Cornelia Fitzgerald.
Grandfather Robert Fitzgerald fought for the Union in the Civil War, then came to North Carolina as a missionary among the Negro freedmen and opened a school at Woodside in Orange County, near Hillsboro. Grandmother Cornelia was an octoroon and a slave, daughter of a well-known North Carolina plantation owner and legislator and his beautiful Negro slave. Cornelia was raised by her father's sister, Miss Mary Ruffin Smith, for whom one of the University of North Carolina dormitories is named. Cornelia was proud of her white ancestry and proud of the shoes she was allowed to wear every day, not just on Sunday.
Miss Murray writes vividly and expertly, with a controlled emotion underlying her story. Standing erect in her own "proud shoes,” she has written what she terms "the story of an American family” and makes it tender, touching, sympathetic and occasionally indignant
Langston Hughes
"I Wonder As I Wander” by Langston Hughes is rightly described as "an autobiographical
journey." (Rinehart and Co., New York. 405 pp. $6) The distinguished Negro poet-
playwright - novelist wanders over the face of the earth—New York, California, Mississippi, Moscow, China, Cuba. Hawaii, Samarkand—and as he wanders, he also wonders—about what it means to be an American, what it means to be a writer, what it means to be a Negro. He writes with fervor, humor, compassion and a constant liveliness that sweeps readers along with him.
He lectures throughout the South, reading his own poems; he goes to Moscow to make a Russian movie about race problems in America—and learns about the Soviets; he visits Chapel Hill and is entertained by two students, Tony Buttita and Milton Abernethy, who run one of his poems In “Contempo" and raise a storm; he goes to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War. Wherever he goes he is observant, interested in the people, and finds new subjects to write about ‘I Wonder As I Wander" is excellent.
Early winter novels are varied enough to appeal to almost any reading taste. "Deluxe Tour” by