Makes Me Wanna Holler: A Young Black Man in America

Nathan McCall

Jan 2011 · Sold by Vintage

About this ebook

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • One of our most visceral and important memoirs on race in America, this is the story of Nathan McCall, who began life as a smart kid in a close, protective family in a black working-class neighborhood.

Yet by the age of fifteen, McCall was packing a gun and embarking on a criminal career that five years later would land him in prison for armed robbery.
 
In these pages, McCall chronicles his passage from the street to the prison yard—and, later, to the newsrooms of The Washington Post and ultimately to the faculty of Emory University. His story is at once devastating and inspiring, at once an indictment and an elegy. Makes Me Wanna Holler became an instant classic when it was first published in 1994 and it continues to bear witness to the great troubles—and the great hopes—of our nation.
 
With a new afterword by the author

Ratings and reviews

I originally read this book when I was seventeen and it stuck with me all these years. Once I seen it on Google Play, I had to get it again, because this book is very close to my own life story. Loved every minute of it.

Excellent history

I grew up hard in Bk early 90's only the Strong Survive I was locked up on the Island family sent me this book never over the years I never forgot it its like i was reading my life 2nd favorite read after the Holy Bible Salute

About the author

Nathan McCall grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia. He studied journalism at Norfolk State University after serving three years in prison, and went on to report for the Virginian Pilot-Ledger Star and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution before joining The Washington Post in 1989. He is the author of a memoir, Makes Me Wanna Holler; an essay collection, What’s Going On; and a novel, Them. McCall is currently is a senior lecturer in African American Studies at Emory University and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.