Albert Murray was a bard of America’s racial complexity
In his essays and criticism, he insisted that black and white Americans shared a common culture
THE ORIGINAL sins of American race relations are as stark as they were horrific. For over two centuries, black people were enslaved. For decades afterwards they endured legal and de facto segregation, and, in the South—where Albert Murray grew up—forced labour and peonage imposed through convict-leasing and sharecropping. These brute facts bequeathed pain and injustice. But they also left a complex cultural legacy. Murray probed that complexity as deeply, seriously and joyously as any American writer.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Twentieth-century fox”
From the August 22nd 2020 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Pep Guardiola, football’s greatest coach, is in a bind
A serial winner is learning how to lose
The Economist’s word of the year for 2024
The Greeks knew how to talk about politics and power
What do feta, cucumbers and cottage cheese have in common?
Social media and the internet are changing how people cook and relate to food
Germany’s former chancellor sets out to restore her reputation
But her new memoir is unlikely to change her critics’ minds
The best books of 2024, as chosen by The Economist
Readers will never think the same way again about games, horses and spies
What to read to understand Elon Musk
The world’s richest man was shaped by science fiction