I was born in New York City, where my parents were Haitian immigrants who met, fell in love, and married in New York City.  My mother, Germaine Joseph, moved my older brother, Kerith and I, to Queens Village in 1975, and raised us as a single parent.  Mom’s strict rules and constant vigilance ensured that both my brother and I did well in school and became voracious readers.  An amateur historian in her own right, I grew up in a family where dinner table conversation centered on Haitian history, contemporary labor politics, and anti-racist struggles.  Culture was integral to my upbringing.  Raised in a predominantly African American neighborhood, Haitian Creole and history coupled with black popular cultural innovations such as the emerging Hip Hop era made my childhood a kind of delicious gumbo.  It was in that house, a simple two-story home on busy Springfield Boulevard, in Jamaica, Queens that I learned important values of hard work, discipline, compassion, and social justice. Growing up in New York City I had the good fortune to be surrounded by a variety of artists, teachers, and community activists who both witnessed and participated in the social movements of the era.  My study of the relationship between social justice movements and the lives of ordinary citizens, especially oppressed racial minorities, is both intellectual and deeply personal.  My mother’s tales of tumult, passion, joy, and sorrow inspired a life-long fascination with social justice.  Moreover, conversations with a variety of neighborhood “elders” provided rich glimpses of the complexity and resonance of this era.  What struck me in each instance was the number of people who highlighted the Black Power Movement’s focus on education, intellectual development, international affairs, and political and cultural consciousness. 

Activism, in a variety of forms from joining organizations, standing on picket lines, protesting the Gulf War, apartheid in South Africa, and the quarantine of Haitian refugees in Guantanamo, is a legacy passed on from my mother, a trade-unionist, hospital worker, and member of local 1199 for almost forty years.

As an undergraduate at Stony Brook University, my double major in European history and Africana Studies was complimented by my involvement in campus activism and journalism as a writer for the campus newspaper, Black World. At Stony Brook issues of social justice came alive through a group of mentors in the Africana Studies department.  After graduating from college and initially wanting to try my hand at free-lance writing, I decided to go to graduate school.  My reasons were practical, political, and intellectual.  Having limited connections to the literati, and wanting to find out more about the world before writing about it, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in American history. A graduate degree, I thought, would allow me to raise the stakes of my community activism to ivory towers where black faces were few and far between.

A native New Yorker, I purposely applied to schools away from the city in hopes of widening my intellect and experience through diverse geographical and social spheres.  Accepted into Temple University I arrived in Philadelphia mildly surprised to witness a level of urban misery that I had almost regarded as being exclusive to my hometown.

Graduate school was unlike anything that I had imagined.  It is often said that the U.S. Senate enjoys the title of the most exclusive club in the world.  If that is true, than being a professional historian ranks a close second.  At least that is how I, and scores of my colleagues, felt in graduate school.  

My graduate school blues were punctuated by participation in community activism in and around the Philadelphia area.  I became intensely involved with issues surrounding police brutality and the death penalty during these years.  This was due in no small part to efforts to keep journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal off of death row.  I was intrigued by Abu-Jamal’s background as a respected journalist and was surprised to learn that he had been a former Black Panther.  This realization reminded me of the stories that I had grew up on regarding black militancy during the 1960s and re-ignited my curiosity about the era. 

At Temple, I also had the extraordinary opportunity to work with poet, professor, and human rights activist, Sonia Sanchez. Professor Sanchez’s mentoring had a profound affect on my approach to history, politics, and social justice. In many ways, my professional and personal choices have been greatly enhanced by her courage, brilliance, and compassion.

These experiences dovetailed into my efforts to write a narrative history of the Black Power Movement that focused on the lives, political activism, and legacy of the era’s iconic and obscure figures. The enormity of the black freedom struggle has always held a particularly strong appeal for me. The sheer vastness of the historical era, a canvas broad enough to include a diversity of ethnicities that range from Caribbean born Black Power activists to Jewish civil rights supporters, African rulers, White House officials, and Black Muslims, is perhaps the most enduring story of our time.  Yet most people are unaware of the period’s expansive hopefulness, radical democracy, and contemporary resonance. It is my hope that the narrative’s accessibility, insights, and sweep will provide contemporary activists of all stripes a window onto a past that has enormous lessons to teach us about the present. With Waiting ’Til the Midnight Hour, I have come full circle, writing a historical narrative that would not be an unfamiliar source of dinner table conversation in my youth.