James Alan McPherson was born in Savannah, Georgia on September 16, 1943.


 He was the second of four children.

His father was a master electrician (the first African-American so recognized in Georgia),and his mother (born Mabel Small) was a maid.


He says it was his discovery of the "colored branch" of the public library that changed his life. When he started reading books, McPherson learned that words, even without pictures, "gave up their secret meanings, spoke of other worlds, made me know that pain was a part of other people's lives."


He attended Morgan State University from 1963 to 1964 before receiving his undergraduate degree in history and English from Morris Brown College in 1965. In 1968, McPherson received a LL.B. from Harvard Law School, where he partially financed his studies by working as a janitor.


He was the first African-American writer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and was included among the first group of artists who received a MacArthur Fellowship.


McPherson taught English and creative writing at the University of California, Santa Cruz (assistant professor; 1969–1971), the Harvard University summer school (1972), Morgan State University (assistant professor; 1975–1976) and the University of Virginia (associate professor; 1976–1981) before joining the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1981, with whom he was associated for the remainder of his life.


He was also a visiting scholar at Yale Law School (1978–1979) and a fellow at Stanford University's Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (1997–1998; 2002–2003). Significantly, McPherson lectured in Japan (at Meiji University and Chiba University), a country whose society and culture profoundly affected him. It was in Japan, he once wrote, where he went to lay down "the burden carried by all black Americans, especially the males."


McPherson died on July 27, 2016, in Iowa City, Iowa, due to complications of pneumonia. He was 72... continue reading 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The lady circled in red was Lucy Higgs Nichols.

Image
 She was born into slavery in Tennessee, but during the Civil War she managed to escape and found her way to 23rd Indiana Infantry Regiment which was encamped nearby. She stayed with the regiment and worked as a nurse throughout the war. After the war, she moved north with the regiment and settled in Indiana, where she found work with some of the veterans of the 23rd. She applied for a pension after Congress passed the Army Nurses Pension Act of 1892 which allowed Civil War nurses to draw pensions for their service. The War Department had no record of her, so her pension was denied. Fifty-five surviving veterans of the 23rd petitioned Congress for the pension they felt she had rightfully earned, and it was granted. The photograph shows Nichols and other veterans of the Indiana regiment at a reunion in 1898. She died in 1915 and is buried in a cemetery in New Albany, Indiana.
Read more

Govardhan Asrani (1 January 1941 – 20 October 2025), known professionally as Asrani, was an Indian actor and director.

Image
 His career in Bollywood spanned over five decades, during which he appeared in over 350 Hindi & Gujarati films. Asrani worked in lead, character, comedic, and supporting roles. He is particularly noted for his role as the jailer in Sholay and Amadavad no Rikshavaro and for his appearances in 25 films with Rajesh Khanna as the lead actor between 1972 and 1991. In Hindi cinema, he appeared in several comic roles from 1966 to 2014 and frequently portrayed the close friend of the lead actor in films between 1972 and 1995. He appeared in multiple films directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and Priyadarshan. In some Hindi films, including Chala Murari Hero Banne and Salaam Memsaab, he played the lead role. In Gujarati films, he acted as the lead from 1972 to 1984 and performed character roles from 1985 to 2012. He directed six films between 1974 and 1997. Asrani died on 20 October 2025 at the age of 84 after a prolonged illness. He was hospitalized in Mumbai before his death and was crem...
Read more

Lena Baker was a Black woman who worked as a maid.

Image
 She was put on trial for killing her white employer, Earnest Knight, who she said tried to rape her. Lena claimed she killed him in self-defense, but an all-white, all-male jury convicted her, and she was sentenced to death. Her trial lasted only one day. Before she was executed, sitting in the electric chair, she said: “What I done, I did in self defense or I would’ve been killed myself. Where I was, I could not overcome it. I am ready to meet my God.” Lena was executed on March 5, 1945. She was the only woman ever executed in Georgia. She left behind three children. Her last words, along with her picture, are now displayed near the electric chair at a museum in Georgia State Prison in Reidsville.
Read more

What was the first scandal in the history of cinema?

Image
 It came from actress Hedy Lamarr in the film Ecstasy also called Symphony of Love (Czech production 1933) which caused the first scandal in the history of cinema. Austrian actress Hedy Lamarr was naked, running through the trees and diving into a river. Then, there was a simulation of a sexual act. All from a great distance. It lasted only ten minutes but an American government commission was scandalized. The film was taken out of circulation and most of its copies were burned. Partly because of the scandal Hedy was beaten by her husband, a weapons manufacturer, who spent more than $300,000 to incinerate other copies available in Europe. Disguised in her maid's clothes Hedy fled to Paris and then to the United States. To make Hedy Lamarr look like she was having an orgasm director Gustav Machaty stuck a pin in her buttocks... continue reading 
Read more

True Story Of Josephine Myrtle Corbin, The Lady Born With Four Legs & Two Private Parts (Photos)

Image
 Josephine Myrtle Corbin was born on 12th of May 1868 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, United States. She was the daughter of William H. Corbin and Nancy Corbin. She was born with two different pelvises beside each other from the waist down. According to Myrtle's doctor, the extra legs was supposed to be her separate twin. Her case was seen as a rare form of conjoined twinning called "Dipygus". Each of her smaller inner legs were paired with one of the outer legs. Although the inner legs with three toes each were too fragile for walking but she was able to them. Technically, she struggled to walk because she had only one usable good leg as the inner ones were paired with the other. Josephine Myrtle Corbin was a natural beauty. Various doctors that carried out several tests on her confirmed that she was very healthy and could operate like every other normal human being. She had four other siblings that were born normal. Josephine Myrtle's birth took the world by surprise ...
Read more

The world of vintage

Image
  On the set of "The Great Escape". James Garner and Steve McQueen co-starred in the 1963 blockbuster and long-runningly popular film, "The Great Escape." While Steve was more famous as a movie star, his salary was $87,500, compared to James's $150,000. James clearly had a more successful agent. According to many of those involved in the film's production, including director John Sturges, Steve was unpopular with many of them. James said of him: "Like Marlon Brando, he could be a nuisance on set. Unlike Brando, he wasn't an actor. He was a movie star, a pose-maker who created the image of a macho man. He brought personality to every role, and people loved that, but you could always see that he was acting. For me, that was a killer." However, the two hit it off and became friends. The film was a huge box office success, and they ended up co-starring again—for about three seconds. James, Steve, Sam. In 1972, while Steve was filming Sam Peckinpah...
Read more

Why didn't Hitler fly out of Berlin and escape to another country before the Russians arrived?

Image
 Towards the end of April 1945, Hitler was genuinely in no way going to make a getaway. I read much of this over the years, and the state of affairs in Berlin was nothing but anarchy. By April 25 the Soviet army had encircled the whole city. No operating airports remained, they were all destroyed or occupied. On April 26, a well-known woman pilot, Hanna Reitsch, in fact, flew a small aircraft and landed in a street near the bunker. She informed Hitler that she could do it to him, but this would have been nearly a suicide mission. Russian fighter planes were in the sky. A slow little aircraft attempting to take off would have been shot down in a few seconds. It was not safe to hide in the air. Another reason that made him remain was what occurred to Mussolini in Italy. Hitler was informed on April 28, that Mussolini was arrested, killed, and then hanged upside down at a gas station as people threw items over his corpse. Hitler was horrified at that destiny. He advised his assistant ...
Read more

What happened to the SS soldiers after World War II?

Image
 After World War II, some SS soldiers were tried and either executed or imprisoned, while others escaped or were let go. After the Waffen-SS killed American prisoners of war in 1944, American troops were told to shoot any SS members they saw, even if they tried to surrender.The Allies learned that the SS was targeting Jews and advised Jewish soldiers to change the religion on their dog tags or take them off. However, taking off the dog tags often made them look even more Jewish. When Nazi Germany surrendered in 1945, Allied forces needed to identify SS soldiers who were surrendering. They mainly looked for the SS blood group tattoo, usually found under the left arm. All German prisoners of war had to march without shirts and with their arms up so the Allies could check for SS tattoos. If they found one, the prisoner would be separated for questioning.To avoid capture and punishment, many SS members destroyed their papers and any proof they were in the SS. Many ran west to surrender...
Read more

Did the German army use the same uniforms for the whole of World War II?

Image
 The German army entered the war in 1939 in high-quality uniforms of thick wool and with a dark-green collar. The leadership spent a lot to ensure that the soldiers appeared shiny and professional with a victory likely to come fast.It was different in 1941 when the invasion of Russia took place. The military was not well prepared to the extreme cold. Guy Sajer in his memoirs describes how the men were forced to wrap their feet in straw or steal clothes off the conquered men just to get by. The catastrophe motivated Germany to prepare heavy reversible winter parkas, white on the outside and gray on the inside, and so on. By 1944 and 1945 Germany had ran out of resources. The exhausted finances and factories that were bombed altered things. Making jackets shorter saved fabric and pure wool was substituted with inexpensive, scratchy, and thin synthetic mixtures. Uniforms faded to brown or dark yellow, when green dye was used up. At the conclusion of the war, soldiers did not necessari...
Read more

What was it like for German soldiers returning home after World War 2?

Image
 No celebrations and parades were dealt with when German soldiers came back after 1945. The majority found the country lying in heaps of bricks and smoke. Many had spent time in Soviet prison camps, and they spent the next decades of their life not returning home until the middle of the 1950s. By the time they got home, they were not known to them. During many years, wives had learned how to survive and take the family by their own. The children did not know the man standing before them that was skinny, fatigued. The family was greatly shocked by this. Most men were unable to find their place in the world and that is why they were depressed and took their own lives. To cope with the humiliation of defeat they were silent. A wall of silence had been created in German households. They did not talk about crimes and horrors. They instead concentrated on hard work. This science contributed to the resurrection of the economy within the shortest time possible, yet it kept them occupied an...
Read more