"Drylongso: a Self-Portrait of Black America" John Langston Gwaltney (Random House, 1980)
In writing his Self-Portrait of Black America, anthropologist, folklorist, and humanist John Gwaltney went in search of "Core Black People"--the ordinary men and women who make up black America--and asked them to define their culture. Their responses, recorded in Drylongso, are to American oral history what blues and jazz are to American music. If the people in William H. Johnson's and Jacob Lawrence's paintings could talk, this is what they would say. "Drylongso: a Self-Portrait of Black America" John Langston Gwaltney Random House 1980 (First edition) 291 pages John Langston Gwaltney was born on September 25, 1928 in Orange, New Jersey, United States; the son of John Stanley Gwaltney and Mabel (Harper) Gwaltney. Gwaltney lost his eyesight soon after birth. Education Gwaltney attended a local high school in Newark. In 1957, he earned his Master of Arts degree from the New School for Social Research in 1957. Ten years later John received a Ph.D. in anthro...