A Negro Speaks of Life, Then and Now

About the Book

An educated, so-called black, Christian writer, in his eighties, reflects on the experiences of his past in poetry, essay and narrative, and comes to

some startling conclusions regarding life in general.

   He defines life as a scuffle between four kinds of numbing truths:

secular, religious, scientific and mundane - all made possible by the

confusions of the English language; maintains that the conquest domination

and control virus has spread from the financial elites to the slaves; rues

the subordination, exclusion and exploitation that has brought Planet Earth

to possible extinction; questions whether the applications of democratic

values and principles are at all honest; admits that he thinks there are many

gods and describes money as the most powerful of all the gods; reaffirms that

people are animals, and states that most people have less character and

integrity than the so-called lower animals; challenges the civilized peoples

to become truly civilized by accepting the honest truth and treating each

individual (including the lower animal individuals) with true compassion and

understanding.

Verse 4, page 69

                           Amadou died while still very young,

                           innocent, shot at 41 times and hit 19

                           despite words of justice and freedom sung

                           by all of us through our teens,

                           and forgotten when we need a job.

About the Author

The author served in the USArmy during World War II and in the government for 35 years before retiring in 1975. During this time, he kept busy writing several articles for national magazines, coaching men's and women's basketball teams at the Sealand Airforce Base in England, participating in debates, teaching, and administering army education programs in Salzburg, Austria and Mannheim, Karlsruhe and Kaiserslautern, Germany. He developed and organized a skills center at Federal City College in Washington, DC in 1968. After retiring, he served as a consultant at the Howard University School of Medicine for one year and director of the office of human relations at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County for one year. He headed his own race relations consultant firm, Coffey, Zimmerman and Associates, Inc. in Washington, DC for ten years.