The memoir offers a poignant exploration of family dynamics and community in Columbus, Ohio, through the lens of the Haygood family. Wil Haygood reflects on the complexities of his upbringing, highlighting his grandmother's cooking, his mother's nightlife, and the contrasting paths of his siblings. Central to the narrative is Mount Vernon Avenue, a vibrant hub of the black community, where he first honed his reporting skills. With themes of love, ambition, and the impact of urban renewal, Haygood captures the essence of his formative years and the ties that shape identity.
"The author of The Butler and Showdown examines 100 years of Black movies--using the struggles and triumphs of the artists, and the films themselves, as a prism to explore Black culture and the civil rights movement in America. Beginning in 1915 with D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation--which glorified the Ku Klux Klan and became Hollywood's first blockbuster--Wil Haygood gives us an incisive, fascinating, little-known history, spanning more than a century, of Black artists in the film business, on-screen and behind the scenes. He makes clear the effects of changing social realities and events on the business of making movies and on what was represented on the screen: from Jim Crow and segregation to white flight and interracial relationships, from the assassination of Malcolm X to the O.J. Simpson trial to the Black Lives Matter movement. He considers the films themselves--including The Imitation of Life, Gone With the Wind, Porgy & Bess, the Blaxploitation films of the 70s, Do The Right Thing, 12 Years a Slave, and Black Panther. And he brings to new light the careers and significance of a wide range of historic and contemporary figures: Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Berry Gordy, Alex Haley, Spike Lee, Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Halle Berry, Ava DuVernay, and Jordan Peele, among many others. An important, timely book, Colorization gives us both an unprecedented history of Black cinema, and a groundbreaking perspective on racism in modern America"-- Provided by publisher
Against the backdrop of one of the most tumultuous periods in recent American history, as riots and demonstrations spread across the nation, the Tigers of poor, segregated East High School in Columbus, Ohio did something no team from one school had ever done before: they won the state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. They defeated bigger, richer, whiter teams across the state and along the way brought blacks and whites together, eased a painful racial divide throughout the state, and overcame extraordinary obstacles on their road to success. In Tigerland, Wil Haygood gives us a spirited and stirring account of this improbable triumph and takes us deep into the personal lives of these local heroes. At the same time, he places the Tigers’ story in the context of the racially charged sixties, bringing in such national figures as Jackie Robinson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Richard Nixon, all of whom had a connection to the teams and a direct effect on their mythical season.
Through the lens of a pivotal Senate hearing, this biography explores Thurgood Marshall's monumental impact on civil rights and the legal landscape in America. Over his forty-year career, he dismantled the separate-but-equal doctrine and championed human rights, becoming the first African-American Supreme Court justice. Author Wil Haygood delves into Marshall's life and the various figures—politicians, lawyers, and activists—who influenced or opposed the civil rights movement, highlighting Marshall's enduring legacy on racial politics in the twentieth century.
The untold story of Sammy Davis, Jr.: This incisive biography and sweeping cultural history conjures "the many worlds [Davis, Jr.] traversed, and shows how the issue of race, in his own mind and in the minds of his fans and detractors, shaped his career and life" (The New York Times). For decades one of America’s most recognizable stars, the real Sammy Davis, Jr. has long remained hidden behind the persona the performer so vigorously generated—and so fiercely protected. Here Wil Haygood brings Davis’s life into full relief against the backdrop of an America in the throes of racial change. He made his living entertaining white people but was often denied service in the very venues he played, and in his broad and varied friendships—not to mention his romances—Davis crossed racial lines in ways few others had. In Black and White vividly draws on painstaking research and more than two hundred and fifty interviews to trace Davis, Jr.’s journey from the vaudeville stage to Broadway, Hollywood, and, of course, Las Vegas. It is an important record of a vanished America—and of one of its greatest entertainers.
Set during a tumultuous period in American history, the narrative follows a historic achievement by the Tigers of East High School in Columbus, Ohio, who won both state basketball and baseball championships in the same year. This remarkable feat united racially divided communities and challenged larger, wealthier teams. Wil Haygood explores the personal lives of these local heroes while contextualizing their triumph within the racially charged atmosphere of the 1960s, referencing influential figures like Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King Jr.
Prawdziwa historia czarnego kamerdynera Białego Domu, kt�ra stała się kanwą
oscarowego filmu. Przez ponad trzy dekady służył on ośmiu prezydentom ? od
czas�w dyskryminacji rasowej do zaprzysiężenia czarnosk�rego na Prezydenta
USA.
He was, for decades, one of the most recognizable figures in the cultural landscape, his image epitomizing a golden age of American show business. His career spanned a lifetime, but for years he has remained hidden behind the persona he so vigorously generated, and so fiercely protected. Now, in this surprising, illuminating, and compulsively readable biography, we are taken beyond the icon, into the extraordinary, singular life of Sammy Davis, Jr. In scrupulous detail and with stunning powers of evocation, Wil Haygood takes us back to the era of vaudeville, where it all began for four-year-old Sammy who ran out onstage one night and stole the show. From then on it was a motherless childhood on the road, singing and dancing his way across a segregated America with his father and the formidable showman Will Mastin, struggling together to survive the Depression and the demise of vaudeville itself. With an ambition honed by poverty and an obsessive need for applause, Sammy drove his way into the nightclub circuit of the 1940s and 1950s, when, his father and Mastin aging and out of style, he slowly began to make a name for himself, hustling his way to top billing and eventually to recording contracts. From there, he was to stake his claim on Broadway, in Hollywood, and, of course, in Las Vegas. Haygood brings Sammy’s showbiz life into full relief against the backdrop of an America in the throes of racial change. Sammy grew up trapped between the worlds of blacks and whites, with so much invested in both. He made his living entertaining white people but was often denied service in the very venues he played. Drafted into a newly integrated U.S. Army in the 1940s, he saw up close the fierce tensions that seethed below the surface. Dragged into the civil rights movement, he witnessed a hatred that often erupted into violence. In his broad and varied friendships and alliances (with Frank Sinatra; Martin Luther King, Jr.; Richard Nixon; Sidney Poitier; Marilyn Monroe, to name just a few), not to mention his romances (his relationship with Kim Novak and his marriage to the blond beauty May Britt drew death threats), he forged uncharted paths across racial lines. Admired and reviled by both blacks and whites, he was tormented all his life by raging insecurities, and never quite came to terms with his own skin. Ultimately, his only true sense of his identity was as a performer.Based on painstaking research and more than 250 interviews, Wil Haygood brings us a sweeping and vivid cultural history of the twentieth century, chronicling black entertainment from its beginnings and the birth of popular culture as we know it. In Black and White transcends simple biography to become an important record, both celebratory and elegiacal, of a vanished America and its greatest entertainer.
