30 Days a Black Man
Hollywood hasn’t discovered my ’30 Days a Black Man’ history book yet. Perhaps no one out there has read the ‘haunting’ and ‘rollicking’ tale or seen these kindly blurbs from some smart and talented fellow journalists.
Editorial Reviews Juan Williams at FOX News —– As a story from the Jim Crow past, Bill Steigerwald’s recounting of Sprigle’s mission . . . reminds us of what an honest conversation about race can accomplish as we continue on the path toward a more equitable future. Paul Theroux, travel guru — This is a…
Read MoreMy ‘Sprigle Lecture’ at the Carnegie Library
More than a hundred people jammed the International Poetry Room at the Carnegie Library in Oakland to hear me babble and rant about my Ray Sprigle book on Thursday July 6. I showed about 30 slides of Sprigle, his guide John Wesley Dobbs and various co-stars of my book. In the crowd was the amazingly…
Read MoreThe Pittsburgh Post-Gazette gives some kind ink to me and my book about its greatest journalist, Ray Sprigle
From the Post-Gazette: Author Bill Steigerwald recounts Ray Sprigle’s journey in ’30 Days A Black Man’ June 14, 2017 12:00 AM By Maria Sciullo / Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Author Bill Steigerwald believes that Ray Sprigle was the Roberto Clemente of journalism. Both men were superstars in their fields but never achieved the level of deserved acclaim…
Read MoreLarge thanks to Bookish59 and LibraryThing for a sweet review of “30 Days …”
Big thanks to Brenda of Queens, N.Y., for the smart, snappy and complimentary 5-star review of 30 Days a Black Man that she wrote for LibraryThing, the cataloging and social networking site for book lovers. Brenda, aka “Bookish 59,” has read and reviewed hundreds of books. If they’re half as good as the she wrote…
Read MoreStatues of Confederate generals and the evil stuff they really symbolize
It’s easy to understand why Washington Post columnist Jonathan Capehart really digs New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu. Despite whatever political muck Landrieu’s had to step in to climb out of the cesspool of Louisiana politics, he has impressed everyone as a wise, decent and principled man when it comes to dealing with race and black-white…
Read MoreRemembering when Pittsburgh’s ‘square white men’ dropped their A-bomb of development on the city’s ‘Little Harlem’
Pittsburgh and its people have pioneered a lot of important stuff over the years. Industrialism and post-industrialism are its major historical innovations. The city’s fortunes — and population — rose and fell precipitously with the rise and fall of manufacturing and steel from the late 1800s until the 1960s, when the heavy industries that once…
Read MoreHow government used the law and racist policies to segregate America — and keep it that way
In the Jim Crow South, the system of segregation was, as we’ve been told for half a century, de jure — established and enforced by law. In the North, racial segregation, we were told, was de facto segregation — a result of private, uncoordinated choices made by individuals and institutions. In 30 Days a Black…
Read MoreFlying somewhere? Buy my 1948 civil rights history book from Hudson News
My old friend Dan Splain, behind whom I sat for six years in alphabetically fixated Catholic school in the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh, took the photo while bound for Tahiti, a place I think I have heard of. It’s a hopeful sign that the book is being noticed. I hope it was in the LA…
Read MoreA Look Down at Ray Sprigle from the Ivory Tower
We’re still hoping/praying for a rave review of 30 Days a Black Man from The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal. Or a nice Sunday Morning segment from CBS. Until then, let’s go way back to Feb. 14, in mid-Black History Month, when Smithsonian.com ran a long and thoughtful article about my book…
Read MoreA good re-meeting with crazy talker John McIntire in the hallowed and potent studios of KDKA 1020
John McIntire kindly asked me to visit his regular Wednesday/Thursday night talk show on KDKA-AM, the powerful and once important radio voice of Pittsburgh that I grew up listening to religiously. They used to say when the world ended, everyone in this tawn would turn to KD Radio’s 50,000-watt signal to get the details. Now,…
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