Passing College
CliffsNotes on
BROWN'S
MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND
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BROWN'S MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND
Notes
including • • • • • • • Life and Background of the Author List of Characters Critical Commentaries Character Analyses Critical Essay Essay Topics and Review Questions Selected Bibliography
by William M. Washington, Jr. Detroit Public School System
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 68501 1-800-228-4078 www.CLIFFS.com ISBN 0-8220-7274-2 © Copyright 1971 by Cliffs Notes, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Cliffs Notes on Manchild in the Promised Land © 1971
1
www.cliffs.com
LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
Claude Brown was born in 1937 and raised in Harlem--that district of Manhattan north of Central Park between Eighth Avenue and the East and Harlem rivers. His parents had moved up from South Carolina in 1935 and settled in a tenement at 146th Street and Eighth Avenue. Included in the family were two girls, Carole and Margie, and two boys, Claude and Pimp. The Browns were among the first of the waves of black migrants who left sharecropping farms in the South to come to the urban North. To these people, moving to the North meant a better life--a life in the "promised land." Claude--or Sonny, as he was called by his family and friends--spent his preschool days battling other boys in the streets of Harlem. He was encouraged to do so by the lifestyles of the street people. He was adopted as a mascot for an infamous Harlem bebop gang, the Buccaneers, and later became a member of its stealing division, the Forty Thieves. By the time he was ten years old, he had been in and out of New York's Children Centers and had been expelled from school several times. His parents reacted in two ways: His father tried to beat him into changing, and his mother pleaded with him, believing that Claude had been "born with the devil in him." Hoping that Claude would do better away from New York, his family sent him to live with his grandparents in South Carolina. During
BROWN'S
MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND
www.cliffs.com
BROWN'S MANCHILD IN THE PROMISED LAND
Notes
including • • • • • • • Life and Background of the Author List of Characters Critical Commentaries Character Analyses Critical Essay Essay Topics and Review Questions Selected Bibliography
by William M. Washington, Jr. Detroit Public School System
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 68501 1-800-228-4078 www.CLIFFS.com ISBN 0-8220-7274-2 © Copyright 1971 by Cliffs Notes, Inc. All Rights Reserved
Cliffs Notes on Manchild in the Promised Land © 1971
1
www.cliffs.com
LIFE AND BACKGROUND OF THE AUTHOR
Claude Brown was born in 1937 and raised in Harlem--that district of Manhattan north of Central Park between Eighth Avenue and the East and Harlem rivers. His parents had moved up from South Carolina in 1935 and settled in a tenement at 146th Street and Eighth Avenue. Included in the family were two girls, Carole and Margie, and two boys, Claude and Pimp. The Browns were among the first of the waves of black migrants who left sharecropping farms in the South to come to the urban North. To these people, moving to the North meant a better life--a life in the "promised land." Claude--or Sonny, as he was called by his family and friends--spent his preschool days battling other boys in the streets of Harlem. He was encouraged to do so by the lifestyles of the street people. He was adopted as a mascot for an infamous Harlem bebop gang, the Buccaneers, and later became a member of its stealing division, the Forty Thieves. By the time he was ten years old, he had been in and out of New York's Children Centers and had been expelled from school several times. His parents reacted in two ways: His father tried to beat him into changing, and his mother pleaded with him, believing that Claude had been "born with the devil in him." Hoping that Claude would do better away from New York, his family sent him to live with his grandparents in South Carolina. During