a Documentarian and Pioneering Journalist

William Greaves making his experimental and long-neglected 1968 film, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.” Credit John D. Kisch/Separate Cinema Archive — Getty Images

William Greaves, a producer and director who helped bring an African-American perspective to mainstream America as a host of the groundbreaking television news program “Black Journal” and as a documentary filmmaker, died on Monday at his home in Manhattan. He was 87.

His daughter-in-law Bernice Green confirmed his death.

Mr. Greaves was well known for his work as a documentarian focusing on racial issues and black historical figures. In his later years he was equally known for his most uncharacteristic film, “Symbiopsychotaxiplasm: Take One.” Made in 1968, it mixed fact and fiction in a complex film-within-a-film structure that made it a tough sell commercially, and it waited almost four decades for theatrical release. When it finally had one, in 2005, it was warmly praised as ahead of its time.

Sepia Cinderella

Sheila Guyse, Singer and Star in ‘Race Movies,’ obit
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Ernest Gaines

From Root article.

The residue years : a novel / Mitchell S. Jackson

Jackson, Mitchell S.

Books by Gaines.

Mississippi masters

Jack and Jill

Our kind of people

Found it after reading The Help, and our book discussion upstate: Alice talked about jack and Jill clubs.

Forty Acres and a Goat

Campbell, Will D. (1986). Forty acres and a goat: a memoir. Atlanta: Peachtree Publishers.

Library Journal Reviews This is a funny, touching, beautifully written sequel to Campbell's autobiography, Brother to a Dragonfly. A Baptist preacher, farmer, and civil rights activist, Campbell has combined parable, allegory, and personal recollection to create a fascinating account of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Using animals as symbols and a composite black co-worker named T.J. Eaves as a sounding board, he charts the uncertain course of social change in the South during this turbulent period. One grows to admire Campbell and his pet goat, Jackson, enormously. Although not as focused as his previous memoir, this is wonderful to read. Highly recommended for academic and public libraries. Anthony O. Edmonds, History Dept., Ball State Univ., Muncie, Ind. Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information.

Passing

Sandweiss, Martha A. (2009). Passing strange: a Gilded Age tale of love and deception across the color line. New York: Penguin.

Kirkus: An intriguing look at long-held secrets, Jim Crow, bad faith—and also, as Sandweiss observes, "love and longing that transcends the historical bounds of time and place."