In an interview with The Beacon, Walker said that when he first began writing, he initially wrote essays and short stories that painted African Americans as societal victims, and only focussed on the negative attributes of white people, rather than the positive attributes of Black people. The book’s featured themes stem from one common question: “What is it like being an African American living in today’s society?” He discusses a diverse range of topics, ranging from his childhood, to parenthood, to thought provoking conversations like the legacy of Michael Jackson, which are shaped by his experience and education. The book, which was also a National Book Award finalist last year, consists of a series of Walker’s essays written over a period of 16 years. How to Make a Slave and Other Essays was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award.Writing, literature and publishing professor Jerald Walker brought home the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction this year for his essay collection entitled How to Make a Slave and Other Essays. The author of two previous books, Walker is Professor of Creative Writing at Emerson College. Walker joins us to discuss that sojourn with his signature blend of fury and farce and to talk about the complicated legacy of Michael Jackson, getting medical care while Black, becoming more than the sum of your victimization and the struggle to break free of both personal and social stereotypes. In his latest book, How to Make a Slave and Other Essays, Jerald Walker traces a journey parallel to Douglass’s, from his days as a high school dropout drug dealer on the South Side of Chicago, to a place at the table of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, the white suburb where he is raising his children and a university professorship.These powerful essays, dubbed “restless” and “brilliant” by the The New York Times, won him a coveted spot on the newspaper’s Best Books of the Year list. “ou shall see how a slave was made a man.” “ You have seen how a man was made a slave,” Frederick Douglass famously wrote in his autobiographical narrative.
Ninety Years at Fifth Avenue & 65th Street.
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