Crossings: A White Man's Journey into Black America

by Walt Harrington

A "Washington Post" staff writer describes his journeys through a Black world, evoking his efforts to cross over and engage Blacks in a way whites generally do not

Genres: Nonfiction, Race

466 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

Reviews

[Nia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The idea of "the decents" providing continuing hope for humanity moved me to tears of hope. That came toward the end of this, one of the few books I'd warrant as worth owning (and for which I interrupted my reading of Cook's A Brief History of the Human Race). In a slightly different context, but still salient to my point that each person is an individual, nearer the start of this book, one of the telling questions he asks (on page 102) is "Isn't the result the same?" To see that context, you'll have to read the book, please, please, please.

Much of what struck me in this work, for which the author, a white man, left his family, a black wife and their kids in the DC area, was just how difficult it is to understand life from the perspective of another. I think that as a writer, whose job it is to get across the perspective of others, he did admirably well. Both from my perspective as a Black American, and from my perspective as someone who has lived in five countries and tried but failed to both understand and convey the perspectives of others.

Specifically, some of the things that struck me as I read include a very sharp agreement with one black man's comment (page 19) of sometimes being "angry and you don't know what you're angry about." But it comes from that permeating sense of not being taken seriously, of low expectations (as when I am asked "why do you know all of this" in the tone of surprise that says I should not...) and of always being underestimated, because of who you were born.
I also very much identified with another comment (page 21) that black folks "must act as if they can control their lives, whether or not they can" but still feel the rage and helplessness of losing a house just a few years short of paying off the mortgage when myself and all of my renters lost our jobs all at the same time, and I had nowhere to go but out of the country to take the only job on offer at the time. Control?

Few people ever understand why I identify so completely with the cries (page 23) of "I hate this hair!" That is how I grew up feeling about my own so-called "good" hair, and for the very same reasons. Yet I wonder if I would have made the cut to play the part of one of the house slaves in Williamsburg? I remember the controversy (page 25) over the reenaction of a slave auction a few years ago. All this, particularly page 28, reminds me of Johanna's comments regarding thee dignity and strength she saw in the faces of my adoptive Great Grandparents ( https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Nash-3390 ), who also recall the time on the plantation, again, their survival and love being "all the more remarkable."

I agree heartily (page 29) and happily that we black folks certainly do tend to be far more vocal and animated in a natural (not for effect) way, at least what feels more natural to me, and to comment more freely when watching films or TV, etc (and we know how to do so AROUND, not during, the dialogue!). Part of the louder and more lively interaction may be the fact that we come from a culture that is used to walking long distances, but I wonder (page 30) how long a slave, presumably barefooted on dirt roads, would take to talk the 75 miles down to Richmond, and whether than would be during the day or night (with permission, presumably, so day?)

My note on Kingsmill, from page 31 is Yup: and thank you. Yet again, someone (as in Cornell West's Race Matters) has given voice to my feelings that "I wanted to be served once in a while, rather than always doing the serving." Yet, very nicely put, in the end (page 32) "The harsh truth has set her free."

This is a point that could not be made by a person of color: (page 33) "...we whites rarely comprehend: it is we who create..." please just read the entire preceding page in order to comprehend Page 33. Partly (page 40) it also explains that famous "Crab Mentality" among black folks (I guess it's not only in DC...). :-(

But Pages 33-42 sum up nicely the fact that many are "telling different sides to the same truth." (This reminds me of a famous Babylon 5 theme, that "The truth is a three-edged sword.") Just as (thank you for recognizing this!) it is uplifting to have the author explain his experience, which is what I experience, but in reverse, when those around me discuss their vacations growing up, their going to parties, their boy/girlfriends in high school, none of which I had at that same time. Just night-shift work at People's drug store and Gr. Marie worrying about me taking the Dupont Circle metro so late at night, when I had no choice.

Crucially, on page 53, at the bottom, it is gratifying to see that having the hard conversations, gently, does indeed help. He, and perhaps we, start to understand...

Ha!! :-) (Page 62) Someone fairly recently complained that I often fail to finish my sentences: I am waiting for the other person to do so, just as the author describes here! (See, I am maybe normal, somewhere!)

Regarding Charleston, I'd like to see some of the documentation he has not cited (page 66), but I do agree that it does explain the high number of skilled slaves and freedmen, like my 5xs Gr. Grandmother, a dressmaker, who purchased her freedom before having my 4xGr. Grandfather James Ward Porter ( http://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Porter-7014 ).

Excellent A Jewish police chief in the deep South having white prisoners clean sidewalks in black neighborhoods!! (page 68)

On page 125 he credits Richard Wright's Black Boy, in particular and also Native Son with helping him to begin seeing one black perspective, and the reason for so much distrust. On page 151 he again points out that bastions of privilege in particular need the voices of other perspectives, like scholarship students from less well-off backgrounds.

Wow!! (page 310) "searches for only the 'decents' ... and never let 'em go." Which can be people in any corner or walk of life, just as a movie (p 357) can indeed lead to "major social change" -which is why we write.

Finally, I love how he points to both film and literature (on pages 364 and 365) to show that James Alan McPherson's earlier point is the same, which is to say that one must measure a person by "the best in all of us" and that duty" of art "is to write about" the relevant for humankind, to help build "... the pillars to help him endure and prevail" whether or not people listen.


Read, Write, Dream, Walk !
ShiraDest
9th of August, 12017 HE

[Read In Colour · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't even know where to start with this book. As a black person, this has to have been one of the most difficult books I've come across. Make no mistake about it, the author writes well, but his subject matter left a bad taste in my mouth.

Crossings: A White Man's Journey into Black America is a compilation of interviews Walt Harrington did in the early 90s with black Americans across the country. You might ask what drove him to do this. Are you ready for this? No really, are you ready? Though he is married to a black woman and has biracial children, he doesn't really know black people. Propelled by a racist joke he overhears at the dentist, he sets out on a quest to visit black people across America in hopes that he might better understand his children. Really, dude? I mean, really!

I can't tell you how many times I put this book down, walked away and cussed about it, but I will tell you that it took me over a month to read it. In that same month I read at least five other books while this one sat on the floor mocking me. So what angered me so much about this book? Let me count the ways.

Apparently Mr. Harrington believes that being poor and being black are synonymous and seems to go out of his way to find interview subjects that are not only poor and black, they're happy about it. From the small town he visits in Mississippi to the trailer parks of Tennessee, his cast of characters are one step, if that, removed from sharecropping. Yes, I know the history of the South. Yes, I know that poverty still exists. What I refuse to believe is that he couldn't find one person in his section covering that region that wasn't poor.

I believe the author intentionally skewed facts to portray African Americans in a bad light. For example, his section about the Midwest touched on East St. Louis, a city blighted by white flight and a loss of industry. The one that stuck out most to me was that teachers there only made $ 10,000. I'd be very interested in knowing where he came across that data. As a resident of the metropolitan St. Louis region (and the daughter of a former East St. Louis School District administrator), I'm well aware that even fresh out of college teachers in the district made a minimum of $ 35,000 in the early 90s. How do I know? When I was fresh out of college in the early 90s looking for a job, I considered teaching in the district. Had the author bothered to really do research, he would have learned that teachers in the district are the highest paid in St. Clair County, have more advanced degrees than any other district in the county, and that the average salary of a district employee with advanced degrees range from $ 50,000 to $ 95,000.

Of all the people Mr. Harrington met along his 25,000 mile journey, I was able to count on one hand the number of "success" stories he met along the way. Success in this case is defined as an elevation in socioeconomic status. So then readers are led to believe that being middle class and above is not the norm and that working to rise above poverty is not necessarily a goal that is achievable, nor is it a goal worth trying to reach.

The author is quick to discount his black wife as non-representative of the norms of black America. Why? Because she is an army brat and, as such, was raised overseas and across the states so her ability to adapt to any situation, to approach life logically,to not be jaded by the "real black experience" is the exception to the rule.

So you ask, why did I force myself to read the book if I disliked it so much? I kept reading in hopes that somewhere along the line the author would have an a-ha moment. I hoped that at some point a light bulb would go off. Unfortunately, it did not. I almost shudder to think about how his skewed views of black people affect his children.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

When a white man writes a book about the experiences of black America, that should cause more than a few eyebrows to raise in skepticism. After all, the fear is that he will turn it into a story about himself - defining African American's through a lens of privilege and arrogant presumption.

By the time I was done reading the introduction to this book, I knew that such fears were unfounded. Harrington is a first-rate journalist who lets his subjects speak for themselves. His reasons for writing the book are as straight forward as his methods. As the husband of a black woman, and the father of two bi-racial children, he wanted to know what kind of racial legacy his children were inheriting. So he climbed into his car and started a 25,000 mile journey across the nation, from the heart of the South to the California coast and everywhere in between, collecting the stories of black Americans as they spoke candidly about their experiences of a racially divided America.

His vignettes act as windows into worlds that many of us will never experience - the crushing reality of life as a single black mother on welfare, the experience of growing up in a sharecropper family, where lynchings happened before your very eyes - as people allow him unprecedented access to their lives.

His journey also takes him, and his readers, into an exploration of the unsung history of black America, such as when he speaks to the descendants of the Buffalo Soldiers who were largely responsible for settling the American West.

What's refreshing about Harrington's approach is that we hear stories from a wide range of people from different geographic, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds to create a richer, fuller definition of 'black' America. He invites his readers to wrestle with the reality that there is no pre-packaged 'Black Experience' of America; that issues of race can often be conflated with, or confused by, issues of class.

Perhaps the most shocking and fascinating aspect of Harrington's odyssey is how he was able to get so many people to agree not only to speak with him, but to speak so freely. He asks people again and again, "Do you think that black people are better off today than they were in the past? Have we made strides in America?" Their answers are as complex as their backgrounds are diverse, but throughout conversation after conversation a consensus starts to emerge: Racism has gone underground. Whereas in the past people knew where they stood, it's become difficult to tease out racism from the jumbled realities of class division and socioeconomic divides.

As you progress through the book, you start to see the deep divides that exist both between white and black America and within the black community itself. Many of the successful people Harrington interviews (from moguls to architects, actors and activists) share a tough message for black Americans, "Yes, racism exists, but you can't use it as an excuse to not strive. You must overcome it, not become defined by it." These interactions create an image of a black identity full of dignity and perseverance, even as they illuminate the stark contrast between the confidence born of class privilege and the despair of poverty.

Engrossing, challenging, and deeply rewarding, "Crossings" is a book that offers important insights to black and white audiences alike. Harrington ends his journey with a quote from a man named Porter Millingham, who said, "We know white folks, but they don't know us...Now, I have thought about that thing all my life, but nobody ever came out here and asked to hear what I think."

Walt Harrington asked, and asked, and asked. And in asking he encourages us to do the same.

[Robert Hays · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won't pretend to be fully objective, because Walt Harrington is a friend and colleague at the University of Illinois. But his excellent writing alone makes this book a joy to read. It also relates to an important subject: the relationships between white and black Americans. Harrington approaches the topic without bias, and the story of his "journey" sometimes may surprise you.

[Julie Drucker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Truly interesting book. Very revealing. I was intrigued by it's title and was hooked right away. Should be required reading in High School because sometimes history books just don't tell a complete story. Everyone who is interested in this area of our history in America should read this book.

[Jason Kinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a great snapshot in time -- 1990. At that point the wounds of the most violent periods of the civil rights movement were still fresh, and those who lived through the period were not yet old and could offer their perspectives. To me, the book best succeeds when the author talks with middle-aged people about what they remember of the 1950s and 1960s.

The book has three major faults -- (1) the author is too present. For the most part I'd rather just hear his interviewees talk, without his putting his gloss on what they're saying -- or at least not putting his gloss on almost every conversation; (2) the author is star-struck. There was no need to talk to Spike Lee, Jesse Jackson, Ice-T and Ishmael Reed -- those guys speak directly to their audiences without needing Mr. Harrington to act as an interloper; (3) the book is too long. By trying for such a large subject - "black America" -- Harrington did not leave himself enough ability to winnow down his stories into a few excellent ones. The book is not edited well.

You can tell that Harrington is a good journalist. And, largely, this extremely ambitious project succeeds. He does his research, he writes well and he speaks to interesting people.

[Merreh65 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is as relevant today as it was when written. It should be required reading
in high school and college American history courses.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had owned this book for 20 years, and thought it was going to be about a white man masking himself to appear black, so he would "pass" as black. It wasn't about that. It was about a white man married to a black woman who went out and talked to a great many people about what their experience has been like a s a black person. Interesting, thought provoking, especially in today's racial climate with race and treatment of black people on the forefront of many people's minds. Worth picking up, or other books with a similar theme.

[Sequoia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Harrington's journey was interesting, but I found his observations too constructed white. Although Harrington was granted access to the 'Black Experience', it is obvious that he only skimmed the tip of the iceberg. Overall Harrington learned to check his constructed whiteness, but he must realize that Africans in America are not as abstract as a trip to a museum. Note to Mr. Harrington, "You got to be a spirit; can't be no ghost."