Arna Bontemps

For years the legendary John Seigenthaler hosted A Word on Words on Nashville's public television station, WNPT. During the show’s four-decade run (1972 to 2013), he interviewed some of the most interesting and most impor­tant writers of our time. These in-depth exchanges revealed much about the writers who appeared on his show and gave a glimpse into their creative pro­cesses. Seigenthaler was a deeply engaged reader and a generous interviewer, a true craftsman. Frye Gaillard and Pat Toomay have collected and transcribed some of the iconic interactions from the show. Featuring interviews with: Arna Bontemps • Marshall Chapman • Pat Conroy • Rodney Crowell • John Egerton • Jesse Hill Ford • Charles Fountain • William Price Fox • Kinky Friedman • Frye Gaillard • Nikki Giovanni • Doris Kearns Goodwin • David Halberstam • Waylon Jennings • John Lewis • David Maraniss • William Marshall • Jon Meacham • Ann Patchett • Alice Randall • Dori Sanders • John Seigenthaler Sr. • Marty Stuart • Pat Toomay

A story of love, violence, and race set at the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution in 1791, African American writer Arna Bontemps's Drums at Dusk immerses readers in the opulent and brutal -- yet also very fragile -- society of France's richest colony, Saint Domingue. First published in 1939, this novel explores the complex web of tensions connecting wealthy plantation owners, poor whites, free people of colour, and the slaves who stunned the colony and the globe by uniting in a carefully planned uprising. The novel's hero, Diron Desautels, a white Creole born in Saint Domingue who belongs to the French antislavery group Société des Amis des Noirs, attempts to spread his message of ""liberty, equality, fraternity"" in a world fraught with conflict.Imaginatively inhabiting a wide spectrum of Haitian voices, including those of white indentured servants, female slaves, and Toussaint L'Ouverture, who later emerged as the revolution's best-known hero, Bontemps's work reflects not only the intricacies of Haitian society on the eve of the revolution, but also a black artist's vision of Haiti in the twentieth century, during the U.S. Marines' occupation and at the brink of war in Europe. A new introduction by Michael P. Bibler and Jessica Adams reveals how Drums at Dusk -- even seventy years after its original publication -- contributes to contemporary studies of the American South as part of the larger plantation region of the Caribbean and inspires a reevaluation of assumptions about revolution, race, and nationalism.

Written in 1951 by Arna Bontemps, major literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance and close friend of Langston Hughes, Chariot in the Sky tells the story of the Jubilee Singers through the life of a young slave boy, Caleb, who becomes one of their earliest members. Caleb is a teenage slave sent to Charleston, South Carolina, to apprentice a tailor. Through careful listening and observation, Caleb diligently teaches himself to read and write. He also discovers his musical talents and develops into an accomplished singer. When the Civil War begins, Caleb is sold to a shopkeeper who takes him to Chattanooga, where he becomes smitten with a free black girl and follows her to Fisk University, a new institution for former slaves in Nashville. Here Caleb grows into his new identity as a free man and receives the esteem and respect that he is due. And he becomes a member of the Jubilee Singers, who become musical ambassadors to the world, promoting education for free blacks and raising money for the struggling new Fisk University. Singing mostly spirituals, the Jubilee Singers become so popular with white audiences that they are invited to tour Europe and Great Britain where they perform for Queen Victoria--an honor Caleb could never have imagined as a slave in South Carolina. Chariot in the Sky is the exhilarating story of one boy's transformation from slave to free man. In the foreword, Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Levering Lewis reflects on his experience as a student at Fisk University and the legacy of the original Jubilee Singers. Andrew Ward, author of Dark Midnight When I Rise, a history of the Jubilee Singers, provides a fascinating description of the Jubilee Singers' rise to stardom. His essay is illustrated with photographs, concert posters, and programs of the Jubilee Singers from the archives of Fisk University. spirituals,

Originally published in 1945 as ""They seek a city"", this book was revised and expanded in 1966 to include chapters on Marcus Garvey, the Black Muslims, Malcolm X, and the racial disturbances in Detriot, Chicago and Watts. It is detailed with stories of African-Americans searching for a home.