Table of Contents
Introduction to this first revised edition Richard Steele 9
Foreword St. Claire Drake 11
Publisher's note to this Agate Bolden edition 15
Prologue-Before My Time 19
Chapter 1 Beginnings 23
Chapter 2 The Early 1900s: Time of Change 30
Chapter 3 Racial Strife: I Never Learned to Swim 35
Chapter 4 Hard Times 40
Chapter 5 If Bad Dreams Were Money, Blacks Would Be Rich 46
Chapter 6 Listening Back 53
Chapter 7 Hoover's Depression and Grandma's Session 58
Chapter 8 Changing Tides: Boyhood to Manhood 67
Chapter 9 DuSable High, Class of'39 76
Chapter 10 My Street of Broken Dreams 88
Chapter 11 World War II 99
Chapter 12 Camp Shenango 109
Chapter 13 Facing Facts 125
Chapter 14 Don't Stop Me Now 134
Chapter 15 Civil Rights Struggle-Northern Style 141
Chapter 16 Front Lines 148
Chapter 17 Raising the "Cotton Curtain" 156
Chapter 18 The Contract Buyers League 165
Chapter 19 Reading the Obits 174
Acknowledgements 181
Notes and Documentation 183
