Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Biography: The Lives of Legendary African Americans

I went to the LA Times Festival of Books (April 13-14). I'll be posting my notes on the various panel discussions I attended.

The sixth panel discussion I attended was "Biography: The Lives of Legendary African Americans."

Here is an edited panelist biography via the LA Times website.

Raymond Arsenault is one of the nation's leading civil rights historians, he is the author of several acclaimed and prize-winning books, including "Freedom Riders: 1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice" and "The Sound of Freedom: Marian Anderson, the Lincoln Memorial, and the Concert That Awakened America." New York Times Notable Book "Arthur Ashe: A Life" was released last year.

David W. Blight is Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. His newest book is "Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom."

Ron Rapoport was a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times for more than twenty years and served as the sports commentor for NPR's Weekend Edition for two decades. His newest book is "Let's Play Two: The Legend of Mr. Cub, The Life of Ernie Banks."

Jeffrey C. Stewart has taught at Harvard University, Yale University, UCLA, Tufts University, Howard University, Scripps College, and George Mason University before coming to the University of California at Santa Barbara as Professor and Chair of the Department of Black Studies from 2008-2016. His latest book is "The New Negro: The Life of Alain Locke."



And the following are my notes from the panel discussion:

Raymond Arsenault. The author spent 9 years on his book about Arthur Ashe. Ashe never seemed to get angry. He didn’t hold a grudge. He was a driven individual. He was a very elegant player. He might have won more majors if he wasn’t as interested in being so elegant. He was driven to make a difference. He died at age 49 due to complications from AIDS that he got via a blood transfusion. As his fame grew so did his anguish.

He grew up in Jim Crow Richmond. His father managed one of the largest parks. He couldn’t play whites so he moved to St. Louis so that he could play whites. Richmond recently named a boulevard for him.

His mother died when he was 6. He also died from AIDS when his daughter was 6. His coach taught him not to fight back against white boys. He grew up subdued on political issues, but got more involved after the assassination of MLK.

He became friends with John McEnroe. He once said he’d love to be McEnroe for 24 hours.

David W. Blight. Frederick Douglass endured racism. He was outraged by it, but also approached it with humor. He was a master of words. He words always surprise. He was hyper-sensitive to slights. He didn’t like criticism.

He lived as a slave around Baltimore for 20 years. Nine of those years were in Baltimore. Baltimore was an interesting city where there were slaves, but there were also 17,000 free blacks. This is where he learned to debate.

He eventually escaped and lived in New York. He moved to Washington DC after his house burned down. He started to become a political insider. He is an example of a radical outsider who became a political insider. He was accused of being too much of an insider. Many of his family members became dependent on him.

Ron Rapoport. Ernie Banks always had a smiling disposition. Optimistic. The author felt this was his way to play defense -- a way to keep the outside world away from his internal problems. For example, four of his marriages ended in divorce.

He grew up in Dallas. His friends got frustrated that Dallas forgot about him. He grew up in a segregated neighborhood. He never interacted with whites until he entered the army. Then he played baseball in the Negro League. In 1953, he played with the Cubs for the last 2 weeks of the season. He had to deal with cultural differences with whites. Also, he had to be away from his teammates during road trips. There was more of a sense of community in the black neighborhoods of Dallas.

He wanted to avoid drama. He never argued a pitch. Vanished during family disputes. Also, this was related to the Civil Rights movement. This angered his fellow baseball players: Hank Aaron and Ernie Banks.

Jeffrey C. Stewart. Alain Locke felt art would be the way for African Americans. He constantly changed and re-invented to meet difficult circumstances.

Philadelphia was an important city in the 19th Century. Black middle class emerged in the early 20th Century. They had Queen Victorian manners. They mastered it so that they couldn’t be criticized. It become an armor from white criticism. A negative result of this was that middle class blacks started to have negative views of poor blacks. This is where Locke grew up and he eventually turned his back on Philadelphia and moved to New York City and the black culture there.

Locke was very egotistical. He hated the NAACP. He thought it created a behavior that was a farce. He was a closeted gay. There was an in betweenness to his manhood. In terms of economics, he tried to determine how to solve problems when you have no money. He realized that he had to survive in a world where he needed to survive on money provided by whites.