This Is My Country Too

by John A. Williams

What does a tourist think of his native land, and what does he see, when the land is America and he is a Negro driving a new white car?

LCCN:65-17842

169 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1964

About the author

John Alfred Williams was an African-American author, journalist, and academic. His novel The Man Who Cried I Am was a bestseller in 1967.

His novels are mainly about the black experience in white America. The Man Who Cried I Am, a fictionalized account of the life and death of Richard Wright, introduced the King Alfred Plan, a fictional CIA-led scheme supporting an international effort to eliminate people of African descent. This "plan" has since been cited as fact by some members of the Black community and conspiracy theorists.

In the early 1980s, Williams, and the composer and flautist Leslie Burrs, with the agreement of Mercer Ellington, began collaborating on the completion of Queenie Pie, an opera by Duke Ellington that had been left unfinished at Ellington's death. The project fell through, and the opera was eventually completed by other hands.

In 2003, Williams performed a spoken-word piece on Transform, an album by rock band Powerman 5000. At the time, his son Adam Williams was the band's guitarist.

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

John A.^^^Williams

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great piece of nonfiction from John Alfred Williams, an overlooked African American writer who has published 10+ novels since the 60s. This is a travelogue of his journey across America for Holiday magazine. The result is fascinating and raw, without being overemotional. There is certainly anger about the treatment of the working classes, but also a close look at African Americans who have tried to disappear into middle class lives. Williams used some of this material to inform one of his later novels (I believe The Man Who Cried I Am where, in part of the novel, a film crew goes across country and runs into trouble in the south*.

All in all, this is a great read for anyone interested in the national mood of mid-60s America from an African American perspective. In some ways, it reminded me of John Steinbeck's Travel's With Charley, but I think this is better.

* This may actually be in !Click Song one of his other, very good novels -- but they are both about writers and I confuse them alot.

[Nina · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book is out of print. i read it for my postwar road narratives class — it's really, really incredible.

[Neyda Gilman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book in a pile of my mom's old college books. I'm really glad I did. It is a well written story. I was surprised by how little things have changed since it was written, even though that was over 50 years ago.

[Thegirlintheafternoon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Task: A book about a road trip - 4/5 stars