Table of Contents
Prologue xi
Chapter 1 Old School Negro: 1909-1914 1
Chapter 2 The Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog: 1914-1925 27
Chapter 3 Banquets and Cocaine Balls: 1925-1928 48
Chapter 4 Gray City of Exiled Men: 1928-1936 77
Chapter 5 White Folks and the Days: 1936-1941 109
Chapter 6 Ruin of the Golden Dream: 1941-1944 142
Chapter 7 Trying to Win a Home: 1944-1945 180
Chapter 8 Monkey An' the Lion: 1946-1948 212
Chapter 9 Inflicting a Wound Upon Himself: 1948-1952 247
Chapter 10 Cadillacs to Cotton Sacks: 1952-1954 274
Chapter 11 Othello: 1954-1955 315
Chapter 12 A Pistol in his Hand, Again: 1955-1959 350
Chapter 13 Five Cornered Square: 1959-1962 399
Chapter 14 Cotton Comes to Harlem: 1963-1965 430
Chapter 15 A Moor in Spain: 1965-1972 454
Chapter 16 Afro-American People's Novelist: 1972-1984 490
Notes 499
Acknowledgments 577
Index 581