Being Somebody and Black Besides: An Untold Memoir of Midcentury Black Life

"Like many twentieth-century Black families, the Nesbitts achieved an incredible transformation over the course of a single generation: from performing manual labor on the rural farms of the deep south to holding advanced degrees and owning property in the urban midwest, their family's story was lived or dreamed of by many who moved north during the Great Migration. In Being Somebody and Black Besides, George B. Nesbitt recounts the extraordinary struggles he, his parents, and his five siblings faced in their upwardly mobile journey from the Great Migration through the Freedom Struggle. Born in Champaign, Illinois, Nesbitt earned a law degree at the University of Illinois, enduring racist lectures and administrators who sought to penalize him when he advocated for racial equality. After graduating, he served in World War II, facing discrimination and harassment like many Black soldiers. And when the war was over, despite his education he held many jobs, some quite lowly, before he became deputy assistantto the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Kennedy administration. A keen observer and narrator of race, Nesbitt recounts with righteous and justified anger his bitter struggles and incredible triumphs, shared by Black men and women in America. His beautifully written memoir is a rare example of a sustained first-person narrative about black life in this era. While many of his experiences will resonate with today's readers, others will provide a crucial glimpse into a chapter of Black life and its place in the unfinished struggle for racial justice in our country"--
An immersive multigenerational memoir that recounts the hopes, injustices, and triumphs of a Black family fighting for access to the American dream in the twentieth century. The late Chicagoan George Nesbitt could perhaps best be described as an ordinary man with an extraordinary gift for storytelling. In his newly uncovered memoir&;written fifty years ago, yet never published&;he chronicles in vivid and captivating detail the story of how his upwardly mobile Midwestern Black family lived through the tumultuous twentieth century. Spanning three generations, Nesbitt&;s tale starts in 1906 with the Great Migration and ends with the Freedom Struggle in the 1960s. He describes his parents&; journey out of the South, his struggle against racist military authorities in World War II, the promise and peril of Cold War America, the educational and professional accomplishments he strove for and achieved, the lost faith in integration, and, despite every hardship, the unwavering commitment by three generations of Black Americans to fight for a better world. Through all of it&;with his sharp insights, nuance, and often humor&;we see a family striving to lift themselves up in a country that is working to hold them down. Nesbitt&;s memoir includes two insightful forewords: one by John Gibbs St. Clair Drake (1911&;90), a pioneer in the study of African American life, the other a contemporary rumination by noted Black studies scholar Imani Perry. A rare first-person, long-form narrative about Black life in the twentieth century, Being Somebody and Black Besides is a remarkable literary-historical time capsule that will delight modern readers.