No Easy Walk: The Dramatic Journey of African-Americans

If ignorance were a sin then it should be confessed. Ironically, ignorance is unconfessable until it is enlightened about the very thing that it does not know. While reading H.L.W. Jr's book I came face to face with my ignorance through page after page of enlightening encounters. I read it because I had felt that there was something that I had not learned-something that I had not previously been aware of or experienced-in my life as a middle aged, middle class, white Hispanic male. In a way HLW's book was for me a pilgrimage as I try to understand the walk of my African-American brothers-a pilgrimage that became more intense and more important to me as I read. Each chapter drew me on and gave me a sense of exploring new territory. Even familiar history was presented in a new light, helping me to see clearer the larger picture of the "dramatic journey of African-Americans. HLW's prose style is very expressive and articulate yet, very economical. One sentence poignantly exhibits that: "Drugs, crime and white flight have picked the carcass of the neighborhood clean." He does not harangue or accuse, he simply chronicles as matter of fact, from well-documented sources and lets the reader draw his own conclusions. I was left to accuse myself if the shoe fit. I understand that this is HLW's first published book. I look forward to reading more.