Strong Men Keep Coming: The Book of African American Men - Softcover

The quirky, engaging voice of Tonya Bolden seems perfectly suited to testify to the tenacious legacy of black men in America; her endearing enthusiasm and deep respect for African American men are irresistible, as clear in her first words as in the finest details of her sketches. "I am the daughter of a black man in America, granddaughter of black men in America, great-great-granddaughter of black men in America. I am a niece, cousin, sister, aunt--and have been a wife and lover--of black men in America. How can I not want to know about their journey?"

Bolden has taken an idiosyncratic approach in her tribute, but one that she pulls off with aplomb. Detailing the lives of over a hundred African American men, from the 17th century to the present, Bolden has made some expected choices, like Jesse Jackson, A. Philip Randolph, and Frederick Douglass. But she devotes considerable time to ordinary men, such as a small-town business owner in 1920s Oklahoma and a former slave who testified before Congress about being terrorized at the voting booth. Even some of Bolden's omissions, such as Paul Robeson, get their due by default, as we learn about the men who played important roles in their lives; a sketch of Robeson's father William Drew tells a more subtle story about the gifted actor and singer than we might have learned from more direct examination.

Despite Bolden's unusual approach and sometimes erratic choices, Strong Men Keep Coming tells its story well, a tale whose moral is "that despite the bondage, despite the postbellum oppression, despite the wretches and traitors to the race, strong black men--thinkers, creators, builders, fighters, givers of good things--they have kept and will keep coming." --Paul Hughes

"Out of shackles [and] blasted Reconstruction dreams, out of Jim Crow’s grip, out of that moment when there was some overcoming and some expectancy that freedom would truly ring—through tempests and trials and a straining for the dawn—black men in America have endured so much, have achieved so much." —from the Introduction Spanning the four centuries from Jamestown to the Million Man March, Strong Men Keep Coming captures the dynamic essence of the black male experience in America. Shedding new light on towering icons, as well as forgotten strivers and pioneers, Tonya Bolden spins exhaustive research and uncommon compassion into a well-crafted, vividly detailed, and entirely absorbing account. Strong Men Keep Coming is about range. Here are the bold experiences of black men in bondage and freedom: the breadth of their achievement—in the arts, politics, education, business, sports, science—and the strategies they devised for liberation and self-defense—from nationalism and revolution to conciliation and integration. Mining fresh insights about cultural heavyweights, including David Walker, Frederick Douglass, W. E. B. Du Bois, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr., Bolden puts familiar stories in elegant perspective. Her penetrating coverage also brightens the corners of many extraordinary lives that, until now, have remained largely unexamined. Among the book’s portraits are the stories of Josiah Henson, the misunderstood real-life model for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom; Dangerfield Newby, father, husband, and one of John Brown’s ill-fated raiders; Henry Highland Garnet, firebrand antislavery activist and organizer; Isaac Myers, founder of the nation’s first black national labor union; Richard Samuel Roberts, the photographer whose portraits of blacks in the Jim Crow South have become treasured historical documents; Oscar Micheaux, groundbreaking filmmaker; and Neil de Grasse Tyson, one of the most highly regarded astrophysicists in the world. By turns triumphant and tragic, this indispensable collection illuminates the strength, courage, and tenacity of a truly remarkable brotherhood of men.