January 2004: Some of Us Did Not Die (Jordan)

Post date: Jan 06, 2010 7:27:55 PM

Ros McIntosh generously hosted the book club meeting on Thursday, January 22.

Book: Some of Us Did Not Die by June Jordan, Basic Books 2002. 304 pages.

Some of the essays in the book were published in the The Progressive, one of which you can read online: http://www.progressive.org/jord0301.html

One obituary of June Jordan: http://books.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,11617,740747,00.html

One book review: http://www.hprob.com/fall2002normreviews/junejordan.htm

An intimate group of four, we greatly enjoyed discussing the essays in Some of Us Did NOT Die by the late June Jordan, poet and UCB professor. Previously unfamiliar with the author, we found her essays addressed many and varied civil rights issues with facts, figures, contemporary political references, and rightous rage--from MLKJr. to breast cancer, Black English as a language expressive of Black culture to socio-economical discomforts on vacation in the Bahamas. Discussing a book of essays is immensely well-suited to book club (for future reference) as we could talk about issues in the essays, and jump around discussing those that had interested us most, even if not everyone has read the whole book.