tales that run the gamut in the function of folklore.
He provides explanation tales in “How God Made
the Butterflies,” “Why Men Have to Work” and
“How the Snake Got His Rattles.” He offers an Af-
rican love story in “The Son of Kim-Ana-u-eze and
the Daughter of the Sun and the Moon.” Above all,
he tells tales of black heroic figures such as High
John the Conqueror of slavery days and Stagolee,
an urban bad man, and he records black resistance
to slavery in “Keep On Stepping” and “People Who
Could Fly,” a tale that is central to TONI MORRI-
SON’s award-winning novel Song of Solomon. In
the introduction to Black Folktales, Lester explains,
“Each person who tells a story molds the story to
his tongue and to his mouth, and each listener
molds the story to his ear. Thus, the same story,
told over and over, is never quite the same” (viii).
Lester has a well-established reputation as a master
storyteller with a powerful, stentorian voice.
Equally well known are Lester’s novels, par-
ticularly And All Our Wounds Forgiven (1994), his
fictional account of his Civil Rights and SNCC
experience. Lester uses his central characters, John
Calvin Marshall (a famous assassinated civil rights
leader) and Bobby Card, Marshall’s field lieutenant
in Mississippi, to provide insights into the physi-
cal and psychological complexity of the movement
and its impact on participants. Lester uses Mar-
shall’s widow, Andrea (whose impending death re-
unites the characters), and his white mistress, Lisa
Adams, to reveal the human frailty and tangled
web of Marshall’s private, domestic life. Through
Card, Marshall’s assistant who is tortured by a
white southern sheriff, Lester demonstrates the
level of emasculation often experienced by black
male civil rights workers who practiced Marshall’s
nonviolent civil disobedience.
Lester’s treatment of the Civil Rights movement
in And All Our Wounds Forgiven was both lauded
and criticized for its historical accuracy. Although
Lester’s credibility in presenting the historical facts
about the Civil Rights movement is not questioned
(he uses flashbacks with actual discussion and
debates that took place during the movement),
and although his presentation of such important
political leaders as the Kennedys, MALCOLM X, J.
Edgar Hoover, and President Lyndon B. Johnson
is generally considered accurate, Lester’s treat-
ment of MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., fictionalized in
Marshall, is considered controversial, insensitive,
and even denigrating. Particularly problematic for
many critics is Lester’s emphasis on the private re-
lationship Marshall maintains with Lisa Adams, his
personal secretary, travel partner, and hotel bed-
room mate at the expense of his devoted wife, the
mother of his children. Although there is a sense
of healing at the end of the novel, Lester seems to
ask if the wounds, particularly the psychological
ones, suffered by all participants of the Civil Rights
movement were worth it in the end.
Lester, the author of more than 25 books of fic-
tion, nonfiction, children’s stories, and poetry, has
received or been a finalist for several awards, in-
cluding the Newbery Honor Award, the American
Library Association Notable Book, the National
Jewish Book Award (finalist), The New York Times
Outstanding Book, the National Book Critics Circle
(finalist), and the National Book Award (finalist).
In 1971, Lester joined the faculty of the Univer-
sity of Massachusetts, Amherst, where he is a full
professor of the Judaic and Near Eastern studies
department and adjunct professor in the English
and history departments.BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lester, Julius. Black Folktales. New York: Grove Press,
1969.
Wilfred D. Samuels“Letter from Birmingham Jail”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963)
As president of the Southern Christian Leader-
ship Conference (SCLC), MARTIN LUTHER KING,
JR., in 1963 identified Birmingham, Alabama, as
“probably the most thoroughly segregated city
in the United States” (King, 85). His decision to
make Birmingham the next battlefield on which
to implement his nonviolent civil disobedience
strategy brought him condemnation and criticism
from fellow clergymen, friends and enemies, black
and white. Alabama, they argued, under the leader-
ship of the new governor, Albert Boutwell, would“Letter from Birmingham Jail” 313