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Obit for Jim Haskins who tried to make up for the lack of children's books about Black kids

July 12, 2005 By pia

Little Luce had a friend from pre-k through elementary school, Margaret. The night before my meeting with the coop board of directors I was in their apartment, and realized that it was right across the brownstone rooftops from my, hopefully future apartment.

Haskins

James Haskins, an educator who in seeking to make up for the dearth of children’s books on black historical figures ultimately became one of America’s most prolific children’s book authors with more than 100 works of nonfiction to his credit, died on Wednesday at his home in Manhattan. He was 63.

Kathy, his wife, influenced Little Luce’s love of Billy Holiday. LL was the only ten year old I knew listening to “Strange Fruit,” and understanding it.

His adult books included biographies of Richard Pryor, Scott Joplin, Lionel Hampton, Winnie Mandela, and “Bricktop,” of which he was a co-author with the red-haired Bricktop, the African-American woman who was a Paris nightclub owner in the 1920’s. “The Cotton Club” (1977), His portrait of the legendary Harlem cabaret, was an inspiration for the 1984 Francis Ford Coppola film of the same name.

He was expelled from his first college for being a civil rights rabble rouser. Always wanted to be older so that I could have been one.

James S. Haskins was born in Demopolis, Ala., on Sept. 19, 1941. His parents separated when he was 12, and he and his mother moved to Roxbury, Mass. After graduating from high school, he enrolled at Alabama State University but was expelled as an “outside rabble-rouser” for his participation in student civil rights protests. He went on to receive a B.A. from Georgetown University and an M.A. in social psychology from the University of New Mexico. He divided his time between his home in New York and Florida, where he was professor of English at the University of Florida at Gainesville.

I am so sorry Kathy and Margaret.

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Comments

  1. frstlymil says

    July 12, 2005 at 2:59 am

    Thank you so much for posting this – I admit to being ignorant to many of Mr. Haskins’ literary contributions – I’d read a few of the adult biographies, but knew nothing about the books written for children. He will be missed.

  2. Doug says

    July 12, 2005 at 3:50 am

    God bless, Little Luce, who’s got her own.

  3. LAT says

    July 15, 2005 at 12:10 am

    I took Children’s Lit from Prof. Haskins at UF. He terrified me, but taught me so much. I was just thinking the other day about how glad I am that I stuck out his class, and now he’s gone.

  4. Erin Conway says

    July 15, 2006 at 12:40 am

    Thank you for this mention of Jim Haskins passing. He was a brilliant Man, inspiring Professor and Mentor and I learned more from him than I have from anyone, whether we were sipping cocktails at Lilians or sitting on the lawn during class. Heaven just got a little richer, Earth a little poorer.

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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