Brother Blue: A Narrative Portrait of Brother Blue A.K.A. Dr. Hugh Morgan Hill

by Warren Lehrer

Brother Blue is the official storyteller of Boston, an ordained minister turned street poet and raconteur who spins tales of struggle and hope on street corners and in prisons, inner-city schools, parks, subways, and churches. The great-grandson of a slave owner and his slave, Brother Blue rises through the white-dominated spheres of the military, the ministry, and academia. He sheds institutional life to become a roaming town crier fueled by a faith in the transformative power of sacred service. This portrait gives voice to the heartfelt life stories of a renowned and original storyteller.

267 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Warren Lehrer is a writer and artist/designer known internationally as a pioneer in the fields of visual literature and design authorship. His work explores the vagaries and luminescence of character, the relationships between social structures and the individual, and the pathos and absurdity of life. His books are acclaimed for capturing the shape of thought and reuniting the traditions of storytelling with the printed page.

Lehrer has received many awards for his books and multimedia projects, including the Brendan Gill Prize, the Innovative Use of Archives Award, three AIGA Book Awards, The International Book Design Award, a Media That Matters Award, and grants and fellowships from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Rockefeller,
Ford, and Greenwall Foundations. Lehrer is a professor at the School of Art+Design at Purchase College, SUNY, and a founding faculty member of the Designer As Author graduate program at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Together with his wife Judith Sloan, Lehrer founded EarSay in 1991, a non-profit arts organization in Queens, NY. Over the last few years, he has been setting stories and text into animation, video, and interactive media. His latest novel, A Life In Books: The Rise and Fall of Bleu Mobley, is on sale now.

Reviews

[Michael McDonough · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the next best thing to being there. You are the best storyteller I ever met. Rest in Peace, Brother Blue!