A Man's Life: An Autobiography

by Roger Wilkins

The autobiography of a Black man who has moved in the highest levels of American society discloses the facts of racism in American life, telling what it is and how it works on all of us

384 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1982

About the author

Roger Wilkins was an African-American civil rights leader, professor of history, and journalist.

Reviews

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Roger Wilkins is the author of Jefferson's Pillow, and that book interested me enough that I read his autobiography. Written in 1982, this book gives the greatest amount of space to Wilkins' career as a black politician in the Democratic administrations of the 1960's. The other phases of his life include writing influential editorials about the Watergate scandal in I think the Washington Post. The autobiography shows Wilkins as not always an inspiring man or even a likable one, but always with a great capacity for self-analysis. Particularly interesting are his reflections on the psychological difficulty of being a middle- or upper-class black while most other blacks were being excluded from that social environment.