Ely: An Autobiography

by Ely Green, Lillian Smith, Bertram Wyatt-Brown

Overview

Ely Green was born in Sewanee, Tennessee, in 1893. His father was a member of the white gentry, the son of a former Confederate officer. His mother was a housemaid, the daughter of a former slave. In this small Episcopal community—home to the University of the South—Ely lived his early childhood oblivious to the implications of his illegitimacy and his parentage. He was nearly nine years old before he realized that being different from his white playmates was of any real significance.

An incident at a local drugstore marked the beginning of what would be a painful rite of passage from an idyllic childhood through a tormented adolescence as Ely struggled to understand why he could not wholly belong to either his father's world or his mother's. "I was having a struggle within," he writes, ". . . learning to hate white people after I had been taught that they were all God's children and we are to love everybody." At age eighteen, still warring to reconcile one part of himself with the other, he fled the mountains of Tennessee—and a brewing lynch mob—for the plains of Texas and a new beginning.

Straightforwardly recounting his early life, rising above bitterness and pain, Ely Green gives his readers an astoundingly honest and poignant portrait of a young man trying to come to terms with race relations in the early twentieth-century South.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780820323978
Publisher:	University of Georgia Press
Publication date:	01/05/2004
Series:	Brown Thrasher Books Series
Pages:	280
Sales rank:	1,155,333
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

LILLIAN SMITH (1897-1966) was a writer, teacher, lecturer, and civil rights activist. Born in Florida, Smith spent much of her life in Georgia. She is the author of seven books, including Killers of the Dream, Strange Fruit, and One Hour, and was also the founding editor of the magazine South Today.

BERTRAM WYATT-BROWN is Richard J. Milbauer Professor of History at the University of Florida. He is the author of several books, including Southern Honor: Ethics and Behavior in the Old South, Yankee Saints and Southern Sinners, and The House of Percy: Honor, Melancholy, and Imagination.

Ely Green (1893–1968) was born in Sewanee, Tennesee, and died in Santa Monica, California. His many and varied occupations included soldier, baseball trainer, boxer, oil field labor organizer, and restauranteur.

Ely Green (1893–1968) was born in Sewanee, Tennesee, and died in Santa Monica, California. His many and varied occupations included soldier, baseball trainer, boxer, oil field labor organizer, and restauranteur.

Editorial Reviews

Unlike any other story of race . . . Poignant and powerful

Saturday Review - Margaret Walker

Fairskinned, Green struggled with the particular circumstances of his life—he was neither black nor white. This is the story of his life in Sewanee, from his childhood to age eighteen, when, threatened by a lynch mob, he left Tennessee for Texas and a new life.

Washington Post

Fairskinned, Green struggled with the particular circumstances of his life—he was neither black nor white. This is the story of his life in Sewanee, from his childhood to age eighteen, when, threatened by a lynch mob, he left Tennessee for Texas and a new life.

Washington Post

"Fairskinned, Green struggled with the particular circumstances of his life—he was neither black nor white. This is the story of his life in Sewanee, from his childhood to age 18, when, threatened by a lynch mob, he left Tennessee for Texas and a new life."--Washington Post

From the Publisher