The Children of Panther Burn: A Historic Fiction

by Roosevelt Wright Jr

The Percy family has amassed a tremendous amount of wealth, but the Mississippi River is threatening to break its levees in 1927 and wash away everything they've worked so hard to achieve. To make sure they keep what is theirs, they and other whites force thousands of African-Americans at gunpoint to shore up the levees. Three escape and begin an epic journey North. Among escapees is Cora Mae, a servant who works for Henry Ford and gathers the knowledge and secrets that help guide her family through the Great Depression and the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Meanwhile, Bully, another survivor, begins a sixty-year love affair with Sarah, a woman he wants to call his own in spite of a mother who keeps them apart with a shotgun. Matthew escapes Panther Burn to find a love and fortune worth dying for on the streets of Detroit. Take an epic 60 year journey through the personal struggles of a family as it battles poverty, racism and seemingly insurmountable odds to find their dreams as The Children of Panther Burn.

694 pages, Hardcover

First published July 1, 2009

Reviews

[Laquista Danielle]

Extradinary book. I've read it at least 3 times over the years. First book I've ever gotten signed by the author. I would like for the author to continue with the story. A few main characters I would love to know what happened to their lives and their legacy

[Roosevelt Wright]

In 1927 the Mississippi River flooded and nearly 10,000 blacks in Greenville, Ms were forced at gunpoint to live on top of a levee for months rather than leave the area. Three of the levee dwellers, from nearby Panther Burn, escaped and began a journey that carried them to Detroit and back to Monroe, La. Over the course of 60 years they amassed riches, lost fortunes, fought enemies, loved and died all in a quest to return to Panther Burn one last time.



It is a 712 page Historic-Fiction epic that doubles as a dramatic thriller and history book at the same time. Unlike most historic fictions, this one identifies real historic characters that may be unfamiliar such as: Marcus Garvey, Elijah Muhammad, Sweet Daddy Grace, A. Phillip Randolph, William Percy, The Pullman Porters, Henry Ford, Paul Robeson and scores of others. It's a great way to get your black history and an exciting read at the same time.



If you like female heroines, you'll love it, esecially Cora Mae, a Panther Burn maid who learns how to survive by listening to the conversations of her white employers, who eventually include the great Henry Ford. She rises from rags to riches and keeps a family together in her quest to return to Panther Burn before she dies.



If you like a love story, you love it, especially "Bully," a Panther Burn youth who was forbidden to marry a Lake Providence socialite because he was a thought of as a low class Negro. To win his forbidden love he spends a lifetime amassing a fortune to prove himself worthy of the love of his life.



If you like drama, serial killers, union clashes, mob violence, or politics, all of that is a part of the epic story that covers African-American life between 1927 and 1993.



I think it's well worth your time to read it.



Of course, I'm biased. I wrote it. Try it.