Wings on My Feet: Black Ulysses at the Wars - Softcover

Odum, Howard W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 025321923X ISBN 13: 9780253219237

Publisher: Indiana University Press, 2007

Synopsis

One of the few depictions of African Americans in World War I, Wings on My Feet (1929) follows the tale of Black Ulysses, John Wesley "Left Wing" Gordon, begun in Howard W. Odum’s Rainbow Round My Shoulder (IUP, 2006). On one level, the novel continues a symbolic journey of the African American spirit; on another, it tracks the experiences of one black soldier from draft to training, shipping out, landing, fighting, returning stateside, and reintegrating into society. The book also explores broader social issues of race, war, and prejudice. As the subtitle makes clear, it is the story not of one war but the various wars Black Ulysses has endured before, during, and after World War I.

About this title

About the Author:

Howard W. Odum (1884–1954) was a sociologist, chiefly known in academic circles for his important studies of the South. Others knew him for his collections of black folksongs—The Negro and His Songs (1925) and Negro Workaday Songs (1926) prepared in collaboration with Guy B. Johnson—and for three "novels" based on the life of a black laborer and known collectively as the Black Ulysses Trilogy.

Steven C. Tracy is Professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 025321923X
• ISBN 13: 9780253219237
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 360