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Available on Jun 01, 2027 | 240 Pages
A profoundly moving coming-of-age memoir that reveals the indomitable spirit in the face of prejudice and abuse that gave rise to one of the most widely acclaimed Black American writers of her generation
A Penguin Classic
June Jordan’s father wanted a son—and since he got a daughter instead, he made her into a soldier. The gifted child of Jamaican immigrants, Jordan learned early on to harden herself not only to the humiliations of racism, sexism, and poverty in 1940s New York, but also to her mother’s own internal struggles and her father’s bouts of violence. “There was a war on against colored people, against poor people,” Jordan writes of the battleground of her youth. Yet despite the tumultuous episodes that marked her childhood, she preserves a deep capacity for love, wonder, and beauty. As she poignantly explores the nature of memory, imagination, and familial responsibility as well as social responsibility, Jordan re-creates the vivid world in which her identity as a social and artistic revolutionary was forged.
A Penguin Classic
June Jordan’s father wanted a son—and since he got a daughter instead, he made her into a soldier. The gifted child of Jamaican immigrants, Jordan learned early on to harden herself not only to the humiliations of racism, sexism, and poverty in 1940s New York, but also to her mother’s own internal struggles and her father’s bouts of violence. “There was a war on against colored people, against poor people,” Jordan writes of the battleground of her youth. Yet despite the tumultuous episodes that marked her childhood, she preserves a deep capacity for love, wonder, and beauty. As she poignantly explores the nature of memory, imagination, and familial responsibility as well as social responsibility, Jordan re-creates the vivid world in which her identity as a social and artistic revolutionary was forged.
Author
June Jordan
June Jordan (1936−2002) was a poet, activist, journalist, essayist, teacher, and the author of more than twenty-five works of poetry, fiction, essays, and children’s books. Active in the civil rights, feminist, antiwar, and gay and lesbian rights movements, she was a professor of African American studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where she founded the influential poetry program Poetry for the People. Among her honors were a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a National Book Award nomination, and a congressional citation for her outstanding contributions to literature, the progressive movement, and the civil rights movement.
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