Synopses & Reviews
In 1964, Pulitzer Prize—winning author and poet Robert Penn Warren set out with a tape recorder to interview leaders of the civil rights movement. Warren was a Southern white man who opposed Jim Crow segregation. He wanted to find out, first hand, about the people behind the "Negro Revolution."
Over the course of several months, Warren traveled the murderous back roads of rural Mississippi with young voting rights activists. He interviewed the leading lights of the movement, such as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Roy Wilkins. Up in Harlem, Warren sat down for a 15-minute appointment with Malcolm X that unwound into several hours of vivid conversation.
The interviews are frank and revealing, the work of an ambivalent southerner living in Connecticut. He was trying to understand the region he left behind, the country as a whole, and the African Americans who were fighting for change. It was also something of an act of personal contrition; as a young man, Warren had held conventionally racist views about the virtues of segregation.
When his 1964 journey was complete, Warren published his findings in Look magazine and in a 1965 book, Who Speaks for the Negro? Warren mixed short excerpts from his transcribed interviews with his own observations and essays to create a work of literary journalism that emerged from one of the most dramatic and significant periods of the civil rights timeline. Who Speaks for the Negro? is long out of print, familiar only to scholars of history and literature.
This book will present a carefully crafted selection of these remarkable conversations between one of Americas most revered writers and some of the most influential men and women of the freedom struggle. Warren was the first poet laureate of the United States and the only writer to have won a Pulitzer Prize both for fiction and (twice) for poetry. This collection will provide, for the first time, a comprehensive and accessible look at Warrens project and the story of its making.
Review
Praise for Say It Loud:
"The speeches
collectively provide a sweeping perspective on evolving issues of black identity in the struggle for equality."
Booklist
"The electrifying speechesall recorded at live eventsfocus directly on the questions, the struggles, the defeats and the triumphs of the 1960s to present-day America. A new depth to oral and written history, readers and listeners should consider this a great resource to add to their own personal collection."
The Saginaw News
Praise for Say It Plain:
A vivid, moving portrait of how black Americans have sounded the charge against injustice, exhorting the country to live up to its democratic principles.”
—Minneapolis Star Tribune
Synopsis
In 1964, Pulitzer Prize winning author and poet Robert Penn Warren set out with a tape recorder to interview leaders of the civil rights movement. He spoke with luminaries such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Ralph Ellison, and Roy Wilkins. In Harlem, a fifteen-minute appointment with Malcolm X unwound into several hours of vivid conversation.
A year later, Penn Warren would publish Who Speaks for the Negro?, a probing narrative account of these conversations that blended his own reflections with brief excerpts and quotations from his interviews. The large collection of audiotapes of his conversations, however, remained unknown to the public until rediscovered by scholars in recent years. A major contribution in their own right to our understanding of the struggle for civil rights, these remarkable long-form interviews are presented here as original documents with pressing relevance today.
Published to coincide with a national radio documentary from American RadioWorks(r), Free All Along brings to life the voices of America s civil rights generation, including writers, political activists, religious leaders, and intellectuals.
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Synopsis
Featured in the New Yorker's Page-Turner
One of Mashable's 17 books every activist should read in 2019
This is an expression not of people who are suddenly freed of something, but people who have been free all along. --Ralph Ellison, speaking with Robert Penn Warren
A stunning collection of previously unpublished interviews with key figures of the black freedom struggle by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author
In 1964, in the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and poet Robert Penn Warren set out with a tape recorder to interview leaders of the black freedom struggle. He spoke at length with luminaries such as James Baldwin, Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Ralph Ellison, and Roy Wilkins, eliciting reflections and frank assessments of race in America and the possibilities for meaningful change. In Harlem, a fifteen-minute appointment with Malcolm X unwound into several hours of vivid conversation.
A year later, Penn Warren would publish Who Speaks for the Negro?, a probing narrative account of these conversations that blended his own reflections with brief excerpts and quotations from his interviews. Astonishingly, the full extent of the interviews remained in the background and were never published. The audiotapes stayed largely unknown until recent years. Free All Along brings to life the vital historic voices of America's civil rights generation, including writers, political activists, religious leaders, and intellectuals.
A major contribution to our understanding of the struggle for justice and equality, these remarkable long-form interviews are presented here as original documents that have pressing relevance today.
Synopsis
In 1964, Pulitzer Prize–winning author and poet Robert Penn Warren set out with a tape recorder to interview leaders of the civil rights movement. Over the course of several months, he traveled the country from the dangerous back roads of rural Mississippi to the streets of Americas northern cities to speak with luminaries such as James Baldwin, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Ralph Ellison, and Roy Wilkins. Up in Harlem, Warren sat down for a fifteen-minute appointment with Malcolm X that unwound into several hours of vivid conversation.
When it was published in 1965, Who Speaks for the Negro? mixed short excerpts from the transcribed interviews with Warrens own observations and essays to create a work of literary journalism that documented one of the most dramatic and significant periods of the civil rights timeline.
Now, award-winning authors Stephen Drury Smith and Catherine Ellis have delved deeply into Penn Warrens archive to present the first comprehensive and accessible look at a living repository of critical narratives that helped shape the civil rights movement.
Synopsis
In 1964, Pulitzer Prizewinning author and poet Robert Penn Warren set out with a tape recorder to interview leaders of the civil rights movement. He traveled the country, from the back roads of rural Mississippi to the streets of Americas northern cities, speaking with luminaries such as James Baldwin, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Ralph Ellison, and Roy Wilkins. In Harlem, Warren sat down for a fifteen-minute appointment with Malcolm X that unwound into several hours of vivid conversation.
Penn Warren went on to write the 1965 classic Who Speaks For the Negro?, his own account of these conversations that incorporated short excerpts from the interviews. However, the audiotapes of his full conversations disappeared into the archives and have remained largely unknown, until now. Free All Along presents these interviews in their entirety as original documents with pressing relevance for our own times. This major contribution to our understanding of the modern struggle for civil rights, which will be released in conjunction with an American RadioWorks® documentarybrings to life the voices of Americas civil rights generationwriters, political activists, religious leaders, and intellectualswhose words and ideas will resonate with a new generation of young people fighting for racial equality in America.
About the Author
Stephen Drury Smith is the executive editor and host of American RadioWorks. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Catherine Ellis is a contributing producer with American RadioWorks®, the highly regarded documentary unit of American Public Media™. She is a founder of Audio Memoir, which chronicles personal stories for families and organizations. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts.