Julius Lester
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Julius Lester (born January 27, 1939), also known as Julius Bernard Lester or by his Hebrew name Yaakov Daniel, is an award winning American author of books for children and adults, and was an occasionally controversial professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Lester is Black and Jewish. He has recorded two albums of folk music.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early life and family
Lester, a Methodist minister's son, was born in St. Louis, Missouri to W. D. and Julia (Smith) Lester. In 1960 he received his BA from Fisk University.
His first marriage to Joan Steinau lasted from 1962 to the couple's divorce in 1970 and produced two children: Jody Simone and Malcolm Coltrane. In 1979 he married Alida Carolyn Fechner, who had a daughter, Elena Milad; the couple had a son, David Julius. The marriage ended in 1991. In 1995 he married Milan Sabatini, who had a daughter, Lian.
[edit] Involvement in the civil rights movement
In the early 1960s, Lester became active in the American civil rights movement, first as a folk singer at numerous civil rights rallies and as part of the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project]. He later worked full time with SNCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) and traveled to North Vietnam as a photogapher to document the effects of the Vietnam War. He co-wrote his first book with Pete Seeger in 1965: The 12-String Guitar as Played by Leadbelly: An Instructional Manual. He recorded two albums of traditional and original songs for Vanguard, "Julius Lester" (1966) and "Departures" (1967). A compilation of selections from both cd's has been released (2006) by Ace Records in England.
He has written more than 40 books for children and adults, dealing with race relations and politics, including 1968's Look Out, Whitey! Black Power's Gon' Get Your Mama!. As a radio announcer on New York City's WBAI, Lester interviewed indiduals involved in a 1968 United Federation of Teachers strike in Brooklyn's Ocean Hill-Brownsville school district. The strike had greatly exacerbated the strain between the African-American and Jewish-American communities, and Lester may have contributed to that strain when he asked one involved man to read an anti-Semitic poem on the air.
[edit] Conversion to Judaism
At the age of 9, Lester had learned that his maternal great-grandfather was a German Jew named Altschul who lived in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. (Ironically, when the now-Jewish Lester attempted to contact members of the Altschul family 40 years later, he discovered that the Altschuls remaining in Pine Bluff had all converted to Christianity).
In 1982, Lester converted to Judaism, a process which he recounts in his second autobiography, Lovesong. As a professor first of Afro-American studies and later of Near-Eastern and Judaic studies, he has played a prominent role in the occasionally strained relationship between African-American and Jewish-American communities -- a role complicated by his earlier career as a radical radio announcer and his reputation in some quarters as an anti-Semite, as well as by the unwillingness of those on both sides of the divide to compromise.
As an academic and a member of both communities, Lester now speaks and writes in attempts to bring African Americans and American Jews together. "The black assumption is that Jews are white people. And blacks don't understand that most Jews don't see themselves as white," he told an interviewer at J. in 1996. He was forced to leave the University of Massachusetts department of Afro-American studies department in 1988 after controversy erupted due to Lovesong's criticism of author James Baldwin for anti-Semitic remarks.
At the end of 2003 he retired from the University of Massachusetts where, in addition to Judaic Studies, he also taught one in the History department one of the university's largest and most popular courses, "Social Change and the 1960s".
[edit] Writing for children
In 1969, at the advice of an editor, Lester began writing for children with To Be a Slave, a collection based on the oral histories of slaves. The book won the Newbery Honor. Since then Lester has won many more commendations and awards for his work, which often focuses on the African-American experience. His books are frequently rooted in folklore, as with his Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit, or they reclaim parts of the post-colonial African experience, as with Sam and the Tigers, a retelling of Little Black Sambo.
[edit] Awards
[edit] Book awards
- Newbery Honor, 1969, and Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, 1970, both for To Be a Slave
- Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, 1972, and National Book Award finalist, 1973, both for The Long Journey Home: Stories from Black History
- Lewis Carroll Shelf Award, 1973, for The Knee-high Man and Other Tales
- Coretta Scott King honor, 1983, for This Strange New Feeling, and 1988, for Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit
- Parents' Choice Story Book award, 1987, for The Tales of Uncle Remus, and 1990, for Further Tales of Uncle Remus
- Reading Magic Award, 1988, for More Tales of Uncle Remus
- Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, American Library Association Notable Book, and Caldecott Honor, all 1995, all for John Henry
- ALA Notable Book, 1996, for Sam and the Tigers.
- Newbery Honor, 2000, for Pharaoh's Daughter.
- Coretta Scott King Book Award, 2006, for his novel Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue.
[edit] Other awards
- Distinguished Teacher's Award, 1983-84
- Faculty Fellowship Award for Distinguished Research and Scholarship, 1985
- National Professor of the Year Silver Medal Award, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, 1985
- Massachusetts State Professor of the Year and Gold Medal Award for National Professor of the Year, Council for Advancement and Support of Education, both 1986
- Distinguished Faculty Lecturer, 1986-87.
[edit] References
- "Julius Lester." Authors and Artists for Young Adults, Volume 51. Gale Group, 2003.
- Lester, Julius. Lovesong: Becoming a Jew, 1988.
- Oppenheimer, Joel. "The Soul the Wanders", The New York Times. January 31, 1988.[1]
- Weisnstein, Natalie. "Julius Lester: There's `no magic formula' for blacks and Jews", J.. February 16, 1996.[2]
