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Gloryland
Born on Emancipation Day, 1863, to a sharecropping family of black and Indian blood, Elijah Yancy never lived as a slave — but his self-image as a free person is at war with his surroundings: Spartanburg, South Carolina, in the Reconstructed South. Exiled for his own survival as a teenager, Elijah walks west to the Nebraska plains — and, like other rootless young African-American men of that era, joins up with the U.S. cavalry.
The trajectory of Elijah’s army career parallels the nation’s imperial adventures in the late 19th century: subduing Native Americans in the West, quelling rebellion in the Philippines. Haunted by the terrors endured by black Americans and by his part in persecuting other people of color, Elijah is sustained only by visions, memories, prayers, and his questing spirit — which ultimately finds a home when his troop is posted to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903. Here, living with little beyond mountain light, running water, campfires, and stars, he becomes a man who owns himself completely, while knowing he’s left pieces of himself scattered along his life’s path like pebbles on a creek bed.
The trajectory of Elijah’s army career parallels the nation’s imperial adventures in the late 19th century: subduing Native Americans in the West, quelling rebellion in the Philippines. Haunted by the terrors endured by black Americans and by his part in persecuting other people of color, Elijah is sustained only by visions, memories, prayers, and his questing spirit — which ultimately finds a home when his troop is posted to the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903. Here, living with little beyond mountain light, running water, campfires, and stars, he becomes a man who owns himself completely, while knowing he’s left pieces of himself scattered along his life’s path like pebbles on a creek bed.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 153 reviews
June 20, 2018
This is not a book to consume. It is a book to savor. The first person narrative is about the struggle and redemption of a black man born on emancipation day in South Carolina. He leaves his home in the post civil war south, joins the army and eventually finds his personal salvation as a guard in Yosemite National Park. The book is like a beautiful poem, like a river of thought, taking you through rough rapids, over rocks and boulders and finally finding a peaceful place to land. I give it 5 stars, but would give more if I could.
February 9, 2010
If you've watched the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea then you know that in the early days of Yosemite the only defense against sheep herders, loggers, and poachers was the Federal army which assigned a regiment of Buffalo Soldiers to patrol the park. Gloryland is a historical novel that follows the life of one of these soldiers from his childhood as the son of South Carolina sharecropper to his soul-saving assignment in Yosemite. Elijah Yancy is an allegorical character, and through his eyes the reader experiences the humiliation of growing up in the Jim Crow South, the cognitive dissonance of a black soldier killing Filipino freedom fighters, and the healing salve that is the high country. Allegories are by nature full of contrivances, but I can easily forgive Gloryland that fault because the book is so lyrically written and it includes one of the best descriptions of a sunrise that I've ever come across.
October 18, 2022
One of the most beautifully written books I’ve read in a long time. This is a must read in my opinion.
September 20, 2011
Gloryland by Shelton Johnson is the story of Elijah Yancy who is born on Emancipation Day in 1863. He is the son of sharecroppers who live in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Unfortunately they quickly learn that in the South emancipation did not mean equality.
Elijah's background is interesting in that he is both black and of Indian descent. As a teenager he witnesses a lynching and soon after he must leave the South in order to be spared his own life. He walks until he reaches Nebraska where he ends up joining the U.S. Army as part of the Calvary.
Elijah struggles with being a part of an army that requires him to subdue Native Americans in the West and then sends him to the Philippines to help quell a rebellion. In both cases he realizes he is helping to take away land and freedoms from strangers – freedoms he has never experienced himself.
At the end of the story Elijah is sent to Yosemite to help patrol the newly created National Park. It is the first time he feels at home and that he has found a source of personal freedom. Along the way he realizes that he has lived most of his life being angry and he is looking for a way to leave that anger behind him.
This was a very good book though some components of it were fairly graphic – I had a particularly hard time reading the about the lynching.
Excerpts from the book:
...He once told me that if you have to ask for something that was already yours, then you'd given it up. Up to that day Daddy believed as if he had rights, but he died outside that courthouse trying to claim what nobody should have to ask for.
When you're afraid, everything is clear, too clear, and the fear seems like something living, the shadow of everything you're seeing and feeling... I was afraid of everything and nothing, especially the nothing that's a hole living inside when you got no one near who cares if you live or die.
Seems like to get something in this world, you gotta take it from someone else.
If Anger is a place to live in, then I think 1898 is the year I moved all the way there. but when you're a good citizen of Anger, you're living alone and there ain't no church, no God to hear you raging, and no family near enough to get singed by your heat...
No one wants to die. No one wants to be forgotten, and to be forgotten is to die. maybe that's why I pray so much, so God can learn to pick my voice out of the noise he's got to listen to, so he can remember my voice.
I lived in Anger so long I forgot that there were other places you could live. I didn't notice that I had no neighbors and no friends. I didn't notice that being alone was a place I'd built with my own hands. When you're a good citizen of Anger, you're stuck inside you, feeling sorry for yourself cause there ain't nobody around to take up the slack.
Elijah's background is interesting in that he is both black and of Indian descent. As a teenager he witnesses a lynching and soon after he must leave the South in order to be spared his own life. He walks until he reaches Nebraska where he ends up joining the U.S. Army as part of the Calvary.
Elijah struggles with being a part of an army that requires him to subdue Native Americans in the West and then sends him to the Philippines to help quell a rebellion. In both cases he realizes he is helping to take away land and freedoms from strangers – freedoms he has never experienced himself.
At the end of the story Elijah is sent to Yosemite to help patrol the newly created National Park. It is the first time he feels at home and that he has found a source of personal freedom. Along the way he realizes that he has lived most of his life being angry and he is looking for a way to leave that anger behind him.
This was a very good book though some components of it were fairly graphic – I had a particularly hard time reading the about the lynching.
Excerpts from the book:
...He once told me that if you have to ask for something that was already yours, then you'd given it up. Up to that day Daddy believed as if he had rights, but he died outside that courthouse trying to claim what nobody should have to ask for.
When you're afraid, everything is clear, too clear, and the fear seems like something living, the shadow of everything you're seeing and feeling... I was afraid of everything and nothing, especially the nothing that's a hole living inside when you got no one near who cares if you live or die.
Seems like to get something in this world, you gotta take it from someone else.
If Anger is a place to live in, then I think 1898 is the year I moved all the way there. but when you're a good citizen of Anger, you're living alone and there ain't no church, no God to hear you raging, and no family near enough to get singed by your heat...
No one wants to die. No one wants to be forgotten, and to be forgotten is to die. maybe that's why I pray so much, so God can learn to pick my voice out of the noise he's got to listen to, so he can remember my voice.
I lived in Anger so long I forgot that there were other places you could live. I didn't notice that I had no neighbors and no friends. I didn't notice that being alone was a place I'd built with my own hands. When you're a good citizen of Anger, you're stuck inside you, feeling sorry for yourself cause there ain't nobody around to take up the slack.
September 6, 2014
I found "Gloryland" a joy to read.
Shelton Johnson's writing's provides narration and poetry about Elijah Yancy and his journey from his life in South Carolina to becoming a Buffalo Soldier.
Shelton Johnson's poetic description of the astonishing beauty of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks as seen throughout the eyes of Elijah Yancy will warm your heart while dreaming of such beauty.
A very good read!
Shelton Johnson's writing's provides narration and poetry about Elijah Yancy and his journey from his life in South Carolina to becoming a Buffalo Soldier.
Shelton Johnson's poetic description of the astonishing beauty of Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks as seen throughout the eyes of Elijah Yancy will warm your heart while dreaming of such beauty.
A very good read!
April 26, 2024
Third time through was a good as the first. A stunning historical novel that really takes you to the time and place. You see. You feel. You smell. You taste. This is a book that must be read slowly and savored. Buy it. You'll want to highlight and reread sections over and over.
Fourth time, yup, good.
Fourth time, yup, good.
May 2, 2021
Having grown up in Yosemite, Gloryland was truly a work of exquisite art. The feelings conveyed and the landscape described were captivating and brought out my own creek of memories. One of my favorite chapters was the conversation between Elijah, Bingham, and McAllister when Elijah attempts to explain the joy of silence, finding oneself amidst the natural beauties of mountains of granite and towering redwoods, contemplating life, and seeking lasting goodness. I believe that one day, all of the “Binghams” and “McAllisters” will have their moments to contemplate life as Elijah did in Yosemite. Whether it be early in life or on their deathbed, a time will come for reflection and the earlier the better for society. This book is a must read for anyone interested in self liberation, finding peace, or for anyone wanting a warm reminder of the beauty of the glory land that is Yosemite.
January 9, 2010
Each chapter in this book reads almost like poetry. This is not a gripping book, certainly not in terms of plot, but reading it chapter by chapter left me with a feeling of insight into the daunting world of being black, male, and strong-minded at the end of the 19th century in the newly "free" south. The book is supposedly about the experiences of one of the first African-American park rangers (the first ones were US Calvary soldiers) in Yosemite, but only the last few chapters touch on the narrator's experience in Yosemite. Instead, the book explores what is was like to try and find one's way in a white world, and finally how the beauty and timelessness of nature provides a healing space for the main character.
May 13, 2012
I really think Shelton Johnson did a great job describing the "feel" of Yosemite and the Sierras. His prose is vivid and lyrical:
"It was a high meadow so close to the sky that the blue of heaven began to stain the plants below. You could see it in the high grass and flowers with the blue of the sky in their petals. Sky was so close there, maybe it was leaching its color, so after a rain the plant just pulls it from the air and gets drunk on it, waving back and forth in the breeze, giddy with indigo."
An easy, yet thoroughly enjoyable read.
"It was a high meadow so close to the sky that the blue of heaven began to stain the plants below. You could see it in the high grass and flowers with the blue of the sky in their petals. Sky was so close there, maybe it was leaching its color, so after a rain the plant just pulls it from the air and gets drunk on it, waving back and forth in the breeze, giddy with indigo."
An easy, yet thoroughly enjoyable read.
February 1, 2021
Written by National Park Service (NPS) park ranger Shelton Johnson, a familiar face to any who saw Ken Burns' series on the National Park Service, Gloryland is an elegantly composed and deceptively profound important work of fiction. It tells the story of Elijah Yancy, born in 1863 on Emancipation Day, and reveals many a difficult historical truth with courage and thoughtfulness. The book explores several themes, including but not limited to freedom, family, love, racism, generational loss, anger, nature, beauty, death, self-determination, and perseverance.
Shortly after his 18th birthday, Elijah is encouraged by his parents to leave their sharecropping home and life just outside Spartanburg, South Carolina. Not to spoil a powerful episode that precipitates this decision, it is safe to say that as a young man Elijah Yancy bridles at the limits imposed on him by the systemic racism impacting his and other formerly enslaved peoples' lives and prospects. Elijah's parents and maternal Grandma Sara, the latter a survivor of the Seminole Wars in Florida, want more for him and urge him to head north for a better life. In due course Yancy heads north and west, enrolls in the U.S. Army where he becomes a member of Troop K of the 9th Cavalry. The book follows several of Yancy's assignments, experiences, and reflections on his and other peoples' perspectives, circumstances, and the actions required of him as an extension of U.S. government policy toward Native Americans on the Great Plains; toward indigenous, Basque, and other peoples scraping out a living on public lands in the Sierra Nevada whose shepherding and traditional livelihood are outlawed on lands incorporated into the newly formed national parks.
To this reader, the most profoundly elegant thing about Gloryland is its composition. Specifically, each chapter is preceded by an epigraph from either Cavalry Tactics: or Regulations for the Instruction, Formations, and Movements of the Cavalry of the Army and Volunteers of the Army of the United States or from one of the numerous patrol reports prepared by K Troop, 9th Cavalry on the events observed on their patrol. What makes this all so profoundly powerful is the example revealed in one of the book's chapters that demonstrates the many silences contained in these reports (and, by implication, the numerous silences in all historic documents--compelling historians and others to avail themselves of multiple, parallel sources with which to flesh out the fullest reckoning of the period or event under study). So, back to the thoughtful formatting and organization. The book's first chapter, titled "getting started" is preceded by an epitaph from the Cavalry Tactics on mounting with or without a saddle via a technique known as vaulting. Flash forward to the final chapter, titled "getting done," which is preceded by an epitaph from the same section of Cavalry Tactics, with the difference being that this last excerpt provides instruction for how to dismount via vaulting. I offer this as demonstration of the exquisite care and attention to detail manifest in this work. There is no detail too small that it doesn't warrant authorial attention.
And finally, the humor. Like life, what makes the heartbreaking moments survivable are the human moments, some of which are filled with great humor. One such example occurs when Sgt. Yancy is given orders to prepare his men for movement from their posting at the Presidio (San Francisco, CA) to their next assignment patrolling the relatively newly created Yosemite National Park. In response, a confused Sgt. Yancy asks what a national park is. In reply, his Lieutenant promptly informs him that ". . . a national park is a problem for the United States Army created by the secretary of the Interior" (p. 153). Ha! Okay, so that exchange may be a whole lot funnier to those of us employed by that agency, but it's emblematic of the fact that what could otherwise be a Very Heavy Book is an uplifting one that just happens to include a number of Very Heavy Topics. Like all good interpretation, in a park program or otherwise, people are moved to action on the basis of how a program or interpretive message moves them. This book, like Johnson's and others programs at Yosemite and elsewhere, should engender a lot of important conversations on the topics addressed within its pages. There has never been a more important moment for these conversations, and Gloryland is a terrific conversation starter.
For anyone wanting to know more about Yancy, the Buffalo Soldiers, or Yosemite, I heartily recommend they check out some of the video footage contained on YouTube and go to the NPS website at https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/histor... to learn more.
Shortly after his 18th birthday, Elijah is encouraged by his parents to leave their sharecropping home and life just outside Spartanburg, South Carolina. Not to spoil a powerful episode that precipitates this decision, it is safe to say that as a young man Elijah Yancy bridles at the limits imposed on him by the systemic racism impacting his and other formerly enslaved peoples' lives and prospects. Elijah's parents and maternal Grandma Sara, the latter a survivor of the Seminole Wars in Florida, want more for him and urge him to head north for a better life. In due course Yancy heads north and west, enrolls in the U.S. Army where he becomes a member of Troop K of the 9th Cavalry. The book follows several of Yancy's assignments, experiences, and reflections on his and other peoples' perspectives, circumstances, and the actions required of him as an extension of U.S. government policy toward Native Americans on the Great Plains; toward indigenous, Basque, and other peoples scraping out a living on public lands in the Sierra Nevada whose shepherding and traditional livelihood are outlawed on lands incorporated into the newly formed national parks.
To this reader, the most profoundly elegant thing about Gloryland is its composition. Specifically, each chapter is preceded by an epigraph from either Cavalry Tactics: or Regulations for the Instruction, Formations, and Movements of the Cavalry of the Army and Volunteers of the Army of the United States or from one of the numerous patrol reports prepared by K Troop, 9th Cavalry on the events observed on their patrol. What makes this all so profoundly powerful is the example revealed in one of the book's chapters that demonstrates the many silences contained in these reports (and, by implication, the numerous silences in all historic documents--compelling historians and others to avail themselves of multiple, parallel sources with which to flesh out the fullest reckoning of the period or event under study). So, back to the thoughtful formatting and organization. The book's first chapter, titled "getting started" is preceded by an epitaph from the Cavalry Tactics on mounting with or without a saddle via a technique known as vaulting. Flash forward to the final chapter, titled "getting done," which is preceded by an epitaph from the same section of Cavalry Tactics, with the difference being that this last excerpt provides instruction for how to dismount via vaulting. I offer this as demonstration of the exquisite care and attention to detail manifest in this work. There is no detail too small that it doesn't warrant authorial attention.
And finally, the humor. Like life, what makes the heartbreaking moments survivable are the human moments, some of which are filled with great humor. One such example occurs when Sgt. Yancy is given orders to prepare his men for movement from their posting at the Presidio (San Francisco, CA) to their next assignment patrolling the relatively newly created Yosemite National Park. In response, a confused Sgt. Yancy asks what a national park is. In reply, his Lieutenant promptly informs him that ". . . a national park is a problem for the United States Army created by the secretary of the Interior" (p. 153). Ha! Okay, so that exchange may be a whole lot funnier to those of us employed by that agency, but it's emblematic of the fact that what could otherwise be a Very Heavy Book is an uplifting one that just happens to include a number of Very Heavy Topics. Like all good interpretation, in a park program or otherwise, people are moved to action on the basis of how a program or interpretive message moves them. This book, like Johnson's and others programs at Yosemite and elsewhere, should engender a lot of important conversations on the topics addressed within its pages. There has never been a more important moment for these conversations, and Gloryland is a terrific conversation starter.
For anyone wanting to know more about Yancy, the Buffalo Soldiers, or Yosemite, I heartily recommend they check out some of the video footage contained on YouTube and go to the NPS website at https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/histor... to learn more.
January 27, 2025
This wasn't quite what I expected. Author Shelton Johnson is a ranger at Yosemite and appeared in Ken Burns' national parks documentary. Telling the story of a Reconstruction-era, freeborn Black man in South Carolina, the book gets off to a solid start as we learn about the daily injustices of life. Once 18 year-old Elijah walks openly and purposefully on the town's whites-only sidewalks without immediate consequence, his parents tell him he must flee for his own safety. Sounds like a great setup, except we don't see or feel what happens as Elijah walks north, eventually becoming a "buffalo soldier" in Nebraska. Elijah ultimately rises to sergeant and is stationed to ride patrols at the new national park of Yosemite to keep natives and ranchers out. He finds himself at Yosemite, but there is no traditional novel structure or development. Worth a read, but better to view it as a series of vignettes than a full-fledged novel.
December 14, 2021
Gloryland is a wonderful and challenging look at family, history, good and bad experiences, and so well written by an accomplished author, who is also a steward of our treasured public lands. Highly recommended, and as I reflect immediately, I am sure that a few more days will deepen and broaden my insights, so I may need to edit or add to this review. I liked it a lot!
February 7, 2022
Black History and Paean to Nature
Shelton Johnson manages to create and maintain a poetry of voice for an African American post civil war southern young man and grow up with him into a poet soldier in the high mountains of Yosemite park.
Shelton Johnson manages to create and maintain a poetry of voice for an African American post civil war southern young man and grow up with him into a poet soldier in the high mountains of Yosemite park.
July 22, 2022
Never have I read a book like this. Painful in ugly racist America, 1900. Gorgeous in poetic beauty. The history of Yosemite and the deep and undeniable truth that God is always speaking, always speaking, always speaking. And it is in the margins where God speaks the loudest. If you only read one chapter, make it the one called Leaving Anger. Or read When Blackness Came to Yosemite.. but read this. Because it may heal us.
October 4, 2025
Loved it! Historical, poetic, spiritual.
May 6, 2024
Tells story of sharecropper in SC who leaves home, walks to Nebraska and enlists in the Army. The writing is poetic. Johnson uses many similes when describing his actions and surrounding environment. He brings Yosemite to life for the reader and I found myself longing to get to the mountains to experience the beauty and the peacefulness of soul he was able to find there. This novel soothed me
January 8, 2018
Shelton Johnson has created an excellent work of historical fiction. The book is presented as the memoirs of Elijah Yancey, an American with African, Seminole and Cherokee roots, who is born in South Carolina and grows up to be a Buffalo soldier who spends one year patrolling Yosemite National Park. There are 40 chapters in the book that can stand alone as thought-provoking essays about various events and topics in his life, but there is a synergy that binds them all together, and this book – this collection of essays – is greater than the sum of its parts.
The synergy is derived from Elijah’s search for justice and fulfillment. Unfortunately for Elijah, justice is elusive. There is only one example of a white man - the officer who recruits him into the Ninth Cavalry Regiment - treating Elijah with any degree of respect, but the descriptions of injustice go beyond racism directed at African-Americans and encompass freedoms that are denied to Native Americans, Filipinos and others; and the reader feels Elijah’s pain and frustration when he describes these injustices. But, ultimately, the reader rejoices at the fulfillment that Elijah does find in Yosemite and beyond Yosemite.
There are many outstanding elements of this book. Three that stand out for me are:
• Poetry – Normally I struggle to appreciate poetry and music that does not rhyme, but Elijah’s “Two Prayers from Luzon" and “Prayers from a High Country” are so eloquent and spiritually meaningful that I find them very moving.
• Dreams – Again, normally I struggle to appreciate accounts of dreams in books (other than the Bible). And, again, Mr. Johnson is able to make his descriptions of Elijah’s dreams work because they powerfully advance the themes of the book and set the stage for a compelling final chapter.
• Similes – On the other hand, I always appreciate good similes, and this book might be the best collection of similes and other figures of speech that I have ever read. The language of Elijah’s memoirs is sprinkled with “ain’t” and double negatives, so the reader does not forget who Elijah is. But poignant similes such as “Surviving didn’t mean backing down or lowering your head like a dog, it meant holding on like an oak in a flood” enable the reader to perceive vividly the emotions, sights, sounds, smells and tastes that Elijah is experiencing.
The result of reading this masterpiece of historical fiction is that the reader has a very good sense of what it meant to be a Buffalo soldier and what it meant to be a person of color living in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – probably better than could be acquired by reading any nonfiction account of that history.
The synergy is derived from Elijah’s search for justice and fulfillment. Unfortunately for Elijah, justice is elusive. There is only one example of a white man - the officer who recruits him into the Ninth Cavalry Regiment - treating Elijah with any degree of respect, but the descriptions of injustice go beyond racism directed at African-Americans and encompass freedoms that are denied to Native Americans, Filipinos and others; and the reader feels Elijah’s pain and frustration when he describes these injustices. But, ultimately, the reader rejoices at the fulfillment that Elijah does find in Yosemite and beyond Yosemite.
There are many outstanding elements of this book. Three that stand out for me are:
• Poetry – Normally I struggle to appreciate poetry and music that does not rhyme, but Elijah’s “Two Prayers from Luzon" and “Prayers from a High Country” are so eloquent and spiritually meaningful that I find them very moving.
• Dreams – Again, normally I struggle to appreciate accounts of dreams in books (other than the Bible). And, again, Mr. Johnson is able to make his descriptions of Elijah’s dreams work because they powerfully advance the themes of the book and set the stage for a compelling final chapter.
• Similes – On the other hand, I always appreciate good similes, and this book might be the best collection of similes and other figures of speech that I have ever read. The language of Elijah’s memoirs is sprinkled with “ain’t” and double negatives, so the reader does not forget who Elijah is. But poignant similes such as “Surviving didn’t mean backing down or lowering your head like a dog, it meant holding on like an oak in a flood” enable the reader to perceive vividly the emotions, sights, sounds, smells and tastes that Elijah is experiencing.
The result of reading this masterpiece of historical fiction is that the reader has a very good sense of what it meant to be a Buffalo soldier and what it meant to be a person of color living in the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries – probably better than could be acquired by reading any nonfiction account of that history.
July 1, 2011
If you saw the Ken Burn's National Parks series, it's not hard to recall USNP Ranger Shelton Johnson and his touching accounts of personal moments in Yellowstone and Yosemite. In his first novel, Gloryland, Johnson shares a riveting philosophical journal of post-emancipation life for a slave's son as he makes his way across a torn and wounded landscape to become a Buffalo Soldier protecting Yosemite. A great read for those that seek rich historical writings in our American experience, lovers of the boundless natural wonders in our National Parks, and aspiring writers. A deeply introspective and poetic soliloquy of a quest for inner peace and freedom.
I look forward to more from Mr. Johnson.
I look forward to more from Mr. Johnson.
July 9, 2016
Story of a black man in the South who knows he must leave or die at the hands of those believe he is less than a man.
Elijah Yancey leaves home and after four years of wandering, joins the US Army to protect our first National Park- Yosemite. Elijah is transformed by the stark, raw beauty of this land.
Elijah Yancey leaves home and after four years of wandering, joins the US Army to protect our first National Park- Yosemite. Elijah is transformed by the stark, raw beauty of this land.
January 17, 2024
A perfect partner to the book I read just before this, Black Hills, by Dan Simmons. This one takes place a few years after the Sioux and Cheyenne killed Custer, and then are betrayed and (further) massacred. It is from the perspective of a young black man, born on Emancipation Day, but into a non-free, heavily threatened life as a sharecropper.
As a boy he sees his respected neighbor, George Washington, killed by the Klux idiots, for "raising his head." His own dad almost gets arrested and killed by the sheriff for trying to vote. So when this young man decides to walk on the boardwalk through town one Sunday, looking the white townspeople in the eye, his life is in danger. His parents and grandmother are in danger because of him. So they tell him to leave. Go North. Enlist in the Army.
He's none too thrilled about the Army, because it means getting shot at. But after nearly two years of walking, he reaches Nebraska. First thing he does is enlist--too tired of being on the go and looking for food. This is when the philosophical part of the book really blooms.
He is part of the calvary, killing buffalo so the native Americans can't eat. He feels horrible about it and thinks about his own grandmother's Seminole heritage. Then he gets sent to Cuba, but not before seeing the Tampa Riot in June 1898, started by some white soldiers from Ohio who shot a black toddler for fun. Then he gets sent to the Philippines to "quell" the locals, which turns out to be the same thing as what they did to the native Americans on the plains, and he hates that. But as a soldier, he has to follow orders.
I am relieved when he's posted to the Presidio in San Francisco. The worst that happens is the population is shocked when they see a black calvary unit escort the President (Teddy Roosevelt, at the time) down Market Street in a parade.
Finally, the poetry begins when he is posted to Yosemite to protect the new national park from poachers, people cutting trees (for firewood), and people grazing sheep. It's where his spirit finally finds its home. Again he hates that he has to escort sheep herders out of the park and separate their flock from them to the other side--just because they have brown skin and can't graze their sheep in the Central Valley (or foothills?) because of the whites.
Yet the other side of it is that he has to ask whites what business they have in the park, and many of them disparage him and his black army patrol. "You'd think that with tall trees leaning down like giants and speaking in whispers, with the wind blowing all the time and as much sky leaning over the trees leaning over me, with all that, you'd think there wouldn't be room left in my head for that fool in his nice suit looking down on me--from a height of more than thirty years. Cause that's how much time has passed since that day and me writing it down. ... just write down [in the daily report] what the man [officer] wants to hear. Good news, cause bad news makes the man angry. Officers like good news. Write it all down. But I remember ... things you couldn't put on paper, as it would be asking too much of something so weak as paper. ... the anger burning in the eyes of that gentleman from San Francisco who didn't appreciate colored soldiers stopping him."
Elijah Yancy feels the beauty of Yosemite opening him up. "... been up in these mountains for months, and mountains are like whiskey. A little bit every day can open you up in ways that are hard to imagine, but a lot every day goes down deep and does things to a man." He meets a native woman and her granddaughter gathering acorns, alone, with none of their family around. He tries to ask, and the woman says, "No one listens to us!" The tribe has been massacred, run out, made ill, just like on the plains.
In telling these stories, the character Elijah (who echoes the author, who is a national park ranger at Yosemite and has been there decades--the first black national park ranger) waxes poetic. "I can remember what came next. I can see the day after that ride into the valley and the day after that, and how all those days and nights overlap in layers, like leaves in the valley in fall after the dogwood and maple trees let go. When you put a shove into the ground, those days and nights and years are all still there, but they've become earth. Everything that once was so full of light, calling you to sit and drowse in it, has dropped to its own shadow." "Before Yosemite, I knew a man needed air to breathe and food to eat and someone to love and a feeling that God was looking out for him. I thought that was it. But you also need something else that don't often get mentioned. Anyone, man, woman, or mule, needs beauty." Elijah Yancy, a soldier, can't let go of the beauty of the place, and beauty helps him live past all the hatreds that he encounters.
As a boy he sees his respected neighbor, George Washington, killed by the Klux idiots, for "raising his head." His own dad almost gets arrested and killed by the sheriff for trying to vote. So when this young man decides to walk on the boardwalk through town one Sunday, looking the white townspeople in the eye, his life is in danger. His parents and grandmother are in danger because of him. So they tell him to leave. Go North. Enlist in the Army.
He's none too thrilled about the Army, because it means getting shot at. But after nearly two years of walking, he reaches Nebraska. First thing he does is enlist--too tired of being on the go and looking for food. This is when the philosophical part of the book really blooms.
He is part of the calvary, killing buffalo so the native Americans can't eat. He feels horrible about it and thinks about his own grandmother's Seminole heritage. Then he gets sent to Cuba, but not before seeing the Tampa Riot in June 1898, started by some white soldiers from Ohio who shot a black toddler for fun. Then he gets sent to the Philippines to "quell" the locals, which turns out to be the same thing as what they did to the native Americans on the plains, and he hates that. But as a soldier, he has to follow orders.
I am relieved when he's posted to the Presidio in San Francisco. The worst that happens is the population is shocked when they see a black calvary unit escort the President (Teddy Roosevelt, at the time) down Market Street in a parade.
Finally, the poetry begins when he is posted to Yosemite to protect the new national park from poachers, people cutting trees (for firewood), and people grazing sheep. It's where his spirit finally finds its home. Again he hates that he has to escort sheep herders out of the park and separate their flock from them to the other side--just because they have brown skin and can't graze their sheep in the Central Valley (or foothills?) because of the whites.
Yet the other side of it is that he has to ask whites what business they have in the park, and many of them disparage him and his black army patrol. "You'd think that with tall trees leaning down like giants and speaking in whispers, with the wind blowing all the time and as much sky leaning over the trees leaning over me, with all that, you'd think there wouldn't be room left in my head for that fool in his nice suit looking down on me--from a height of more than thirty years. Cause that's how much time has passed since that day and me writing it down. ... just write down [in the daily report] what the man [officer] wants to hear. Good news, cause bad news makes the man angry. Officers like good news. Write it all down. But I remember ... things you couldn't put on paper, as it would be asking too much of something so weak as paper. ... the anger burning in the eyes of that gentleman from San Francisco who didn't appreciate colored soldiers stopping him."
Elijah Yancy feels the beauty of Yosemite opening him up. "... been up in these mountains for months, and mountains are like whiskey. A little bit every day can open you up in ways that are hard to imagine, but a lot every day goes down deep and does things to a man." He meets a native woman and her granddaughter gathering acorns, alone, with none of their family around. He tries to ask, and the woman says, "No one listens to us!" The tribe has been massacred, run out, made ill, just like on the plains.
In telling these stories, the character Elijah (who echoes the author, who is a national park ranger at Yosemite and has been there decades--the first black national park ranger) waxes poetic. "I can remember what came next. I can see the day after that ride into the valley and the day after that, and how all those days and nights overlap in layers, like leaves in the valley in fall after the dogwood and maple trees let go. When you put a shove into the ground, those days and nights and years are all still there, but they've become earth. Everything that once was so full of light, calling you to sit and drowse in it, has dropped to its own shadow." "Before Yosemite, I knew a man needed air to breathe and food to eat and someone to love and a feeling that God was looking out for him. I thought that was it. But you also need something else that don't often get mentioned. Anyone, man, woman, or mule, needs beauty." Elijah Yancy, a soldier, can't let go of the beauty of the place, and beauty helps him live past all the hatreds that he encounters.
July 29, 2019
Gloryland is the story of Elijah Yancy, the son of slaves, who was born on Emancipation Day in 1863 in Spartanburg, South Carolina. But while slavery was ended (sort of), African-Americans are not free in the Reconstructed South. As sharecroppers, they don’t own the land they work on. They can’t vote. And the risk of violence and death is always present. As Elijah approaches manhood, his family tells him that he has to leave, or risk being killed for being outspoken and demanding dignity.
Elijah heads West where he joins the Army, and eventually becomes a sergeant in the 19th Cavalry. However, while the Army offers him the best chance of attaining freedom and respect, it also requires him to subdue Native Americans (he himself has Seminole and Cherokee ancestors) and quell rebellion in the Philippines. How, he wonders, can he deny freedom to other people of color when black Americans have never had it?
Eventually Elijah ends up in Yosemite, protecting the national park. Here too he has to displace Indians and Mexicans, but the beauty and the majesty of the place soothes his soul. Shelton Johnson was himself a ranger at Yosemite for many years, and this novel is based on his own family records and stories.
It’s a moving story, filled with humor as well as horror. It would make a great movie, and Ava DuVernay should direct it.
Elijah heads West where he joins the Army, and eventually becomes a sergeant in the 19th Cavalry. However, while the Army offers him the best chance of attaining freedom and respect, it also requires him to subdue Native Americans (he himself has Seminole and Cherokee ancestors) and quell rebellion in the Philippines. How, he wonders, can he deny freedom to other people of color when black Americans have never had it?
Eventually Elijah ends up in Yosemite, protecting the national park. Here too he has to displace Indians and Mexicans, but the beauty and the majesty of the place soothes his soul. Shelton Johnson was himself a ranger at Yosemite for many years, and this novel is based on his own family records and stories.
It’s a moving story, filled with humor as well as horror. It would make a great movie, and Ava DuVernay should direct it.
October 1, 2020
One of my FAVORITE reads.
I have been enjoying the outdoors almost all of my 63 1/2 years. I have enjoyed the National Parks since 1961 thanks to my father, and as I got older I made it a habit to visit five a year with my wife and kids. While watching Ken Burns' series, THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA, I encountered a very elegant man, who was able to construct sentences in a most beautiful and creative way ~ Shelton Johnson, National Park Ranger at Yosemite. I looked him up and saw that he studied English and wrote, GLORYLAND. I knew I had to read it.
The book is so beautiful and so sad, because I knew since I was a young white kid, I could explore so much beauty without fear. The love and joy of open space and the aesthetics of the wilderness opened my heart with such joy. Elijah Yancy, our protagonist, did not have that freedom, though he was born on Emancipation Proclamation Day. It made me cringe to read what life was like for him and his family, and how even as he grew older how his uniform became a conflict to his idea of freedom, and mine.
I loved what Yosemite had given him, and I wish it could be that way for everyone.
A well written book with memorable metaphors and imagery. It is quite a book for 2020! I only hope Shelton writes more. He is so talented, and this is a GEM!
I have been enjoying the outdoors almost all of my 63 1/2 years. I have enjoyed the National Parks since 1961 thanks to my father, and as I got older I made it a habit to visit five a year with my wife and kids. While watching Ken Burns' series, THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA'S BEST IDEA, I encountered a very elegant man, who was able to construct sentences in a most beautiful and creative way ~ Shelton Johnson, National Park Ranger at Yosemite. I looked him up and saw that he studied English and wrote, GLORYLAND. I knew I had to read it.
The book is so beautiful and so sad, because I knew since I was a young white kid, I could explore so much beauty without fear. The love and joy of open space and the aesthetics of the wilderness opened my heart with such joy. Elijah Yancy, our protagonist, did not have that freedom, though he was born on Emancipation Proclamation Day. It made me cringe to read what life was like for him and his family, and how even as he grew older how his uniform became a conflict to his idea of freedom, and mine.
I loved what Yosemite had given him, and I wish it could be that way for everyone.
A well written book with memorable metaphors and imagery. It is quite a book for 2020! I only hope Shelton writes more. He is so talented, and this is a GEM!
June 18, 2020
Juneteenth
The celebration of Juneteenth reminds me of the best book I have read in the last couple of years. The novel Gloryland by Shelton Johnson tells the story of Elijah Yancy who was born on Emancipation Day 1863. The reader meets a compelling character who must walk from South Carolina to Fort Robinson, Nebraska, to join the U.S. Cavalry.
His unit goes West to subdue American Indian tribes and later to the Philippines to quell rebellion. Remembering his Seminole grandmother who helped raise him, he wrestles with his duties versus his conscience. “Weeds are just plants folks don’t got a use for. Out on the Great Plains, those weeds were called Indians,” Elijah tells himself.
Such wisdom written in the vernacular of the uneducated Elijah punctuates his adventures. Ultimately his troop is posted to protect the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903.
His life represents a metaphor for the promise of emancipation versus the reality of Black Americans’ lives in the United States. Nevertheless, Gloryland is an uplifting book about a resilient man who finds redemption in, of all places, Yosemite.
The author, Shelton Johnson, is himself a ranger in Yosemite. Ken Burns’s documentary film on the national parks features him prominently.
The celebration of Juneteenth reminds me of the best book I have read in the last couple of years. The novel Gloryland by Shelton Johnson tells the story of Elijah Yancy who was born on Emancipation Day 1863. The reader meets a compelling character who must walk from South Carolina to Fort Robinson, Nebraska, to join the U.S. Cavalry.
His unit goes West to subdue American Indian tribes and later to the Philippines to quell rebellion. Remembering his Seminole grandmother who helped raise him, he wrestles with his duties versus his conscience. “Weeds are just plants folks don’t got a use for. Out on the Great Plains, those weeds were called Indians,” Elijah tells himself.
Such wisdom written in the vernacular of the uneducated Elijah punctuates his adventures. Ultimately his troop is posted to protect the newly created Yosemite National Park in 1903.
His life represents a metaphor for the promise of emancipation versus the reality of Black Americans’ lives in the United States. Nevertheless, Gloryland is an uplifting book about a resilient man who finds redemption in, of all places, Yosemite.
The author, Shelton Johnson, is himself a ranger in Yosemite. Ken Burns’s documentary film on the national parks features him prominently.
October 24, 2024
In this literary historical fiction Elijah Yancy, an African-Native American is born on Emancipation Day in South Carolina. As a young man thirsting for the kind of respect and freedom he cannot find in the south he heads west. He joins the army as the only opportunity available for himself to advance, but he battles internal demons about fighting wars for the government meant to suppress the freedoms of Native Americans and Filipino people, freedoms that he has longed for himself. It is not until he is stationed at Yosemite, to guard the new National Park from poachers and grazers, that he begins to find his happiness, peace, and truth.
This novel, written by Shelton Johnson, who has incorporated history and his knowledge as a member of the National Park Service, is a quiet and interior story taking on themes of racism and the internal struggle between duty and the responsibility to do what's right. I highly recommend it to all fans of literary fiction, especially those who appreciate an honest look into the important roles people of color have played in America's history.
This novel, written by Shelton Johnson, who has incorporated history and his knowledge as a member of the National Park Service, is a quiet and interior story taking on themes of racism and the internal struggle between duty and the responsibility to do what's right. I highly recommend it to all fans of literary fiction, especially those who appreciate an honest look into the important roles people of color have played in America's history.
October 7, 2024
A lyrical, heartfelt paean (I had to look that up to be sure it was the right word (it was)) to family, "freedom," and the natural world, Yosemite National Park in particular, in the context of a story about the challenges faced by an African-American boy growing up in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War in the American south and his journey to manhood and west through America.
Author Shelton Johnson, himself a Yosemite Park Ranger, knows his subject well and writes about it beautifully - though somewhat repetitively in the later sections of the book, which focus on his main character's time in the park. I appreciated the love of both the author and his character for the beauty of Yosemite, but was actually drawn even more to the story of the boy and his quest for respect and freedom. Overall, a strong first book from a "non-professional" writer, who I hope to hear more from in the years ahead.
Author Shelton Johnson, himself a Yosemite Park Ranger, knows his subject well and writes about it beautifully - though somewhat repetitively in the later sections of the book, which focus on his main character's time in the park. I appreciated the love of both the author and his character for the beauty of Yosemite, but was actually drawn even more to the story of the boy and his quest for respect and freedom. Overall, a strong first book from a "non-professional" writer, who I hope to hear more from in the years ahead.
Read
June 23, 2018I rarely give a book 5 stars, but I came close on this one. The only thing which kept me from doing so is that I would have liked a little more time spent in Yosemite. But the writing was powerful and moving. My wife and I had just visited the Mariposa Grove at Yosemite National Park a couple of days before I finished the novel, and I interrupted my wife's reading to get her to read his description of being among the sequoia trees. It was exactly the feeling we had being amongst the big trees. But he so beautifully articulated the emotions and experience of life over and over again, not just with Yosrmite but with growing up and being a man. If you have been to Yosemite, I highly, highly recommend this book, but it is a magnificent read even if you have never been there. So much more resonates than just Yosemite.
August 12, 2018
Got this as a gift from my brother, who retired from the Park Service. The author is a ranger at Yosemite NP, and his 2009 novel follows an African American born in 1863, from his childhood in South Carolina in the aftermath of the Civil War to as a young man walking to Nebraska. There, he decides to join the US Cavalry, becoming a "buffalo soldier" engaged with subduing Native Americans in the West and quelling rebellion in the Philippines after the Spanish American War, all the while questioning his role in these colonization efforts. Next, he is posted to the Presidio in San Francisco then from there to guard Yosemite in the early 1900's. The description of the early days of the park is beautifully written, along with the poetic description of his personal transformation during his service at the park.
July 4, 2024
p.241 “dear God: I greatly appreciate what you were sayin bout that little red fir bent double under packed snow as i rode through the merced grove this past spring cause when i reached over and shook that tree all the snow fell off that fir’s branches, quick to sky the tree stood tall, and i knew its burden woulda melted come summer, but if you see a burden pressin down on somethin you just reach out then and there cause one day it may be you under that mountain prayin for freedom.”
p.250 “Who would go to all the trouble and effort of coming up here to graze livestock if they didn’t have to? It was Mr. Emmanuel’s livelihood, his profession, what put food on his plate and maybe his family’s, but this open country was now a national park, and there was no room for him and his sheep. So we did the job. I separated that man from everything he owned, from his property.”
p.250 “Who would go to all the trouble and effort of coming up here to graze livestock if they didn’t have to? It was Mr. Emmanuel’s livelihood, his profession, what put food on his plate and maybe his family’s, but this open country was now a national park, and there was no room for him and his sheep. So we did the job. I separated that man from everything he owned, from his property.”
August 10, 2021
I write this review with caution and many apologies. It was absolutely beautiful and awfully sad, as any book about a young black man growing up in the early 1900s must be. The language is pure poetry in prose and sometimes even real poetry or songs. Beautiful.
But I should set your expectations. If you're in the mood for a travelogue or any sort of travel narrative, this isn't it. He travels, to be sure, but in a world colored by memories and feelings. If you're in the mood for introspection, dreams, fantasies and color, this will be perfect for you. My problem was that I was in the mood for history. And this is history, but not what I was wanting.
Still, I savored every word. Beautiful. Sad. Glorious.
But I should set your expectations. If you're in the mood for a travelogue or any sort of travel narrative, this isn't it. He travels, to be sure, but in a world colored by memories and feelings. If you're in the mood for introspection, dreams, fantasies and color, this will be perfect for you. My problem was that I was in the mood for history. And this is history, but not what I was wanting.
Still, I savored every word. Beautiful. Sad. Glorious.
July 11, 2024
I love Yosemite and the mountains and waterfalls and valleys and views. The author is a ranger in Yosemite National Park and an African American. This is the fictional life story of a buffalo soldier in the late 19th century to early 20th. I found the style of the writing very exhausting to read. It is very reflective and somewhat train of conscience. So much of the story comes by implication from the inner thoughts of the
Fictional narrator. However, I stuck with it and found its strength for me is in a better understanding of the mind and heart of an oppressed people—blacks in America. That is this book’s strength. I also appreciate how he found true freedom in communing with and participating in the incredible beauty of God’s creation.
Fictional narrator. However, I stuck with it and found its strength for me is in a better understanding of the mind and heart of an oppressed people—blacks in America. That is this book’s strength. I also appreciate how he found true freedom in communing with and participating in the incredible beauty of God’s creation.
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