I've Known Rivers: Lives of Loss and Liberation

by Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot

In I’ve Known Rivers, sociologist Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot practices her unique “human archaeology,” peeling back the layers of six extraordinary lives. What she creates is a wholly original work, a penetrating portrait of the lives of middle-class African-Americans that has not been seen before.The six storytellers in Lightfoot’s work are poised in midlife, the time we all look back as a way to anticipate the future. In dialogue with Lightfoot, they reconstruct their lives with heroic candor, reflecting on the “necessary losses,” the price of privelege. Any reader, regardless of race or gender, will identify with these lives, with the wya thses storytellers live with contradiction, change rage into love, and search for ways to “give forward.”Together these stories assume the power of a great novel, and through the mixture of losses and gains, despair and hope, trauma and recovery, ambivalence and ambition, Lightfoot presents a very all-American tale: the universal story of people moving up and out of their communities of origin toward some uncharted future.Lightfoot’s subjects represent a vast range of experience:Katie Cannon, a tenured professor of theology, writes her illiterate father for the first time. Charles Ogletree, a renowned criminal defense lawyer teaching at Harvard Law School, is haunted by memories of a close friend, in jail for life. The rape of her mother and the pain of her illgitimacy open the story of Toni Schiesler, research chemist and former nun. Tony Earls, a psychiatrist studying the roots of violence, enjoys the way both science and jazz improvisation enrich his research. A balance between public acclaim and intimate relationships is the enduring goal of Cheryle Wills, a glamorous and successful entrepreneur. In the final protrait, Orlando Bagwell, a documentary filmmaker, creates work that reveals the beautiful/ugly truths of history.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, African American

654 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot is an American sociologist who examines the culture of schools, the patterns and structures of classroom life, socialization within families and communities, and the relationships between culture and learning styles. She has been a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education since the 1970s.

Reviews

[Denise Mitnick · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of my favorite books about a woman's psychological journey-- in this case a brilliant woman, and a black brilliant woman in Civil Rights America.

[Tifnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was an interesting read and not one I would have normally picked up. Of course it was a second hand find and then it sat on my book shelf for a little while.

I've Known Rivers is about random African-American men and women who have overcome great obstacles in their past to gain personal growth, freedom and success. Most of the stories I enjoyed reading, learning about and understanding what it was/is like to be an African American living in a predominately white society. Often I was reminded about the still dividing line between white and black societies today and it wasn't always just whites against blacks but sometimes it was blacks against whites as they didn't want to fit in nor conform.

In particular I enjoyed reading about the men as they often had a different and a more ground base appreciation of where they are now whereas the women (like white women) were about monetary gain and what they own as if that symbolized acceptance into a white society.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book has opened my eyes to a period I lived through, and brought me to see it through the eyes of those whose lives were most touched by the events of the civil rights struggles and successes of the 1960's and 70's.
Since it was published in 1997, we can look back, but it
also gives insight to where we are now, in 2015, still struggling at a different level, to allow rights and opportunities, to Black Americans and to all Americans who struggle against the limitations of this time.
Her method - interviewing over a substantial period of time so that the conversation becomes a dialogue - gives us understanding of the subject and the author. It opens up the lives of six admirable people, who moved beyond their circumstances to meaningful and full lives.

[Pia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this book, a collection of interviews of African American intellectuals and academics, and cried. The stories are deeply moving; I especially like the interview with the theologian Katie Cannon, but they are all good. Lawrence's writing style isn't always as crisp as I would like, but I can empathize with her difficulty cutting down on such great material.

[Cardyn Brooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's so much to appreciate about I've Known Rivers. For me, it's one of the first books in which the experiences reflect the complicated details of everyday life for Black people's intellectual, academic, artistic, personal, professional and socio-economic aspirations in modern times; the high price of the pursuit of excellence.

[Ebony Cain]

Each day I wait impatiently for the moment that I can crawl back into the pages of what is quickly becoming my favorite book. The author is turning each new character into a powerful teacher in my life...