But his purchase, and his desire to pass some inheritance on to his children, provides a foundation for him to explore his personal and spiritual history, as well as Baltimore's untold stories. His new neighborhood, Homeland-largely White, built on racial covenants-is not where he is "supposed" to live. With sardonic wit, Jackson describes his struggle to make a home in the city that had just been convulsed by the uprising that followed the murder of Freddie Gray. It would all be unremarkable but for the fact that he had grown up in West Baltimore and now found himself teaching at Johns Hopkins, whose vexed relationship to its neighborhood, to the city and its history, provides fodder for this captivating memoir in essays. In 2016, Lawrence Jackson accepted a new job in Baltimore, searched for schools for his sons, and bought a house. A stirring consideration of homeownership, fatherhood, race, faith, and the history of an American city.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |