The Omni-Americans: Some Alternatives to the Folklore of White Supremacy

Albert Murray

Nov 2020 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Mirron Willis

About this audiobook

Rediscover the "most important book on black-white relationships" in America in this special fiftieth anniversary edition. "The United States is in actuality not a nation of black people and white people. It is a nation of multicolored people. . . . Any fool can see that the white people are not really white, and that black people are not black. They are all interrelated one way or another." These words, written by Albert Murray at the height of the Black Power movement, cut against the grain of their moment, and announced the arrival of a major new force in American letters. In his 1970 classic The Omni-Americans, Murray took aim at protest writers and social scientists who accentuated the "pathology" of race in American life. Against narratives of marginalization and victimhood, Murray argued that black art and culture, particularly jazz and blues, stand at the very headwaters of the American mainstream, and that much of what is best in American art embodies the "blues-hero tradition"-a heritage of grace, wit, and inspired improvisation in the face of adversity. Reviewing The Omni-Americans in 1970, Walker Percy called it "the most important book on black-white relationships . . . indeed on American culture . . . published in this generation."

About the author

Albert Murray (1916-2013) was born in Alabama and graduated from Tuskegee Institute in 1939. His books include South to a Very Old Place, The Hero and the Blues, Train Whistle Guitar, The Spyglass Tree, The Seven League Boots, The Magic Keys, and Stomping the Blues. He was a cofounder of Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Prolific audiobook narrator Mirron Willis has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards and an Audie Award. An accomplished actor, he has appeared on stage, in films, and on television. His many theater credits include roles in Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing, Knock Me a Kiss, and A Raisin in the Sun.