Folks Like Me

Sam Cornish's fourth collection of poems spans the time from the Depression through the early 1960s in cities across America. It was a period when segregation was the law and was accepted by virtually all whites and some blacks. The book is a political portrait presenting the voices of the African-American community. Some, like Paul Robeson, confused and shocked their peers by looking toward communism and socialism, others upheld a middle-class system rooted in the values of church and community. The subjects of the poems include James Baldwin, Joe Louis, the Scottsboro Boys, the early bus boycotts, and tensions between neighborhoods and families that erupted into sudden violence. The tone is one of hope and optimism as well as tragedy and turmoil. The underlying theme of political identity focuses on an awakening that changed urban areas across the country when America was still struggling with the presence of a subculture that it was unwilling to accept as part of its social fabric.