Publisher Description
When Maggie Comer left abject poverty in the rural South, she never dreamed she would become the mother of five children who share thirteen college degrees.
Told through Maggie's own words and through those of her son James—an award-winning child psychiatrist and brilliant educator—Maggie's American Dream is an unforgettable chronicle of courage, resourcefulness, and pride.
Together, the memories of mother and son form an engrossing history of one black family's struggle for freedom and equality, as well as a compelling testimonial for the life-changing power of education.
This is the story of a woman, poor and black, who realized her own American dream of opportunity and education for her children.
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About James P. Comer
James P. Comer,
M.D., is the founder and chairman of the Comer School Development Program, the
Maurice Falk professor of child psychiatry at the Yale Child Study Center, and
associate dean of the Yale University School of Medicine. He has been the
recipient of the Grawemeyer Award in Education, the John and Mary Markle
Scholar in Academic Medicine Award, the Rockefeller Public Service Award, the
Harold W. McGraw, Jr., Prize in Education, the Charles A. Dana Award for
Pioneering Achievement in Education, the Heinz Award for Service to Humanity,
and many other awards and honors, including forty-one honorary degrees.
About the Narrators
Ossie Davis (1917-2005)
was an American actor, writer, and director best known for his many screen
roles and for his involvement in the civil rights movement. Among his film and
television credits are The Cardinal, Do the
Right Thing, Doctor Doolittle, and The
L Word. He was a featured speaker at the funerals of Martin Luther King and
Malcolm X, and was inducted into the NAACP Image Awards Hall of Fame. In 1995,
both he and his wife Ruby Dee received the National Medal of Arts—the highest
honor given to an artist by the United States Government.
Ruby Dee (1922–2014) was a multi-award-winning actress, playwright, screenwriter, and activist. During her seven-decade career, she won a Grammy, Emmy, Obie, and Drama Desk award and was nominated for an Academy Award. She was also the recipient of a National Medal of Arts, a Kennedy Center Honor, and Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. She is perhaps best known for originating the role of Ruth Younger in the stage and film versions of A Raisin in the Sun, but she also had roles in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing and Jungle Fever. She was also known for her civic work with husband Ossie Davis. She also wrote plays, fiction, and a column in New York’s Amsterdam News. Born in Cleveland, she worked initially with the American Negro Theater in Harlem, where she grew up.