Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether - 1970-06

New York: Prentice Hall, 1970. SCARCE Association Copy, SIGNED AND INSCRIBED BY AUTHOR at front end page -"to Janet Saxe, Best of Luck Teaching Black Literature. Louise Meriwether April 1972". Louise Meriwether (born1923) is an African-American novelist, essayist, journalist and activist. Daddy Was a Number Runner is her critically acclaimed first book, and the first novel to come out of the Watts Writers' Workshop. Considered an underappreciated classic, it is her fictional account of a year in the life of a 12 year old girl growing up in Harlem during the Great Depression. "It risks offending people by taking up such issues such as police brutality, the unemployment situation, the desperation caused by the Depression and the different ways that the Blacks and whites are treated by society." (Ishmael Reed, The New York Times, June 18, 2021 "A Novel From ’70 Is Still Resonant"). Janet (Cheatham) Saxe (Bell) is an African-American educator, author and independent… Read More