{"product_id":"in-black-and-white-isbn-9780804172516","title":"In Black and White","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe untold story of Sammy Davis, Jr.: This incisive biography and sweeping cultural history conjures \"the many worlds [Davis, Jr.] traversed, and shows how the issue of race, in his own mind and in the minds of his fans and detractors, shaped his career and life\" (\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e).\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor decades one of America’s most recognizable stars, the real Sammy Davis, Jr. has long remained hidden behind the persona the performer so vigorously generated—and so fiercely protected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHere Wil Haygood brings Davis’s life into full relief against the backdrop of an America in the throes of racial change. He made his living entertaining white people but was often denied service in the very venues he played, and in his broad and varied friendships—not to mention his romances—Davis crossed racial lines in ways few others had.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eIn Black and White\u003c\/i\u003e vividly draws on painstaking research and more than two hundred and fifty interviews to trace Davis, Jr.’s journey from the vaudeville stage to Broadway, Hollywood, and, of course, Las Vegas. It is an important record of a vanished America—and of one of its greatest entertainers.\u003cb\u003eWinner of the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award in Nonfiction, the ASCAP Deems Taylor-Timothy White Award for Outstanding Musical Biography, and the Nonfiction Book of the Year Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Portray[s] Davis’ Herculean achievements and epic decline in intimate detail while also putting them in historical and social context.” —\u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“[Haygood] does a vivid, immediate job of conjuring the many worlds [Davis, Jr.] traversed, and shows how the issue of race, in his own mind and in the minds of his fans and detractors, shaped his career and life.” —\u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A chilling portrait of a complex man who came to personify Las Vegas’ flash as well as its lost soul.” —\u003ci\u003eEntertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Haygood’s rich and layered biography illuminates the world into which Sammy Davis, Jr. was born—Cuban American, Harlem and vaudeville—and the elite, mostly white world in which Davis yearned to live.” —\u003ci\u003eMinneapolis Star Tribune\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“One of the real strengths of \u003ci\u003eIn Black and White\u003c\/i\u003e is Haygood’s skill as a social and cultural historian, his eye for the significant detail, as he chronicles Davis’s sometimes halting, sometimes pathetic attempts to refashion himself in response to new social, cultural, and political conditions.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Wil Haygood’s unflinching biography of Sammy Davis, Jr. is a portrait of the artist as a lost soul.” —\u003ci\u003eTime\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Haygood is . . . a vivid and provocative writer, with a knack for setting the scene and making atmosphere double as analysis.” —\u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“[A] nuanced portrayal of Davis’ conflicted sense of self.” —\u003ci\u003ePeople\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Haygood writes with great power and great compassion, and he has created a book that I couldn’t put down and that I will never forget.” —Robert A. Caro\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Of all the books I have read on fame and its discontents, this is the most revelatory, the most insightful, not least because it affords us a sustained glimpse of a famous life lived amid the often conflicting crosscurrents of race, fame, sex and crime.” —Sean O’Hagan, \u003ci\u003eThe Observer\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“[A] moving, exhaustive life of one of America’s greatest entertainers. . . . Haygood’s reporting and powerful prose reveal Davis’s career against the backdrop of the swinging ‘60s and the Rat Pack . . . and Davis as a tragically complex man.” —\u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e (starred review)\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A fascinating read. . . . \u003ci\u003eIn Black and White\u003c\/i\u003e does splendid justice to its subject while brilliantly touching on the larger theme of race in 20th century America.” —\u003ci\u003eVariety\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A dazzling, hard-to-put-down examination of [Davis, Jr.’s] life and times. . . . Exhaustively researched and written with the assured and snappy style of one of Sammy’s own shows.” —\u003ci\u003eBookPage\u003c\/i\u003eWil Haygood is currently visiting distinguished professor in the department of media, journalism, and film at Miami University, Ohio. For nearly three decades he was a journalist, serving as a national and foreign correspondent at \u003ci\u003eThe Boston Globe,\u003c\/i\u003e where he was a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and then at \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e. He is the author of \u003ci\u003eThe Butler: A Witness to History; Tigerland: 1968-1969: A City Divided, a Nation Torn Apart, and a Magical Season of Healing; Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America; Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson; In Black and White: The Life of Sammy Davis Jr.; Two on the River; King of the Cats: The Life and Times of Adam Clayton Powell Jr.;\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Haygoods of Columbus: A Family Memoir\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003ci\u003eThe Butler\u003c\/i\u003e was later adapted into the critically acclaimed film directed by Lee Daniels, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey. Haygood has received a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, and the 2017 Patrick Henry Fellowship Literary Award for his research for \u003ci\u003eTigerland\u003c\/i\u003e. He lives in Washington, D.C.CHAPTER 1\u003cbr\u003e VAUDEVILLE DREAMS\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Although Sammy Davis, Jr., was descended from the dangers   of the Negro plantation-this one located in rural North Carolina-it was the Cuban   blood that would confuse him for a lifetime. Family members on the Cuban side would   refer to it as \"this Cuban thing.\" They meant the currency implied in a particular   shade of skin color. And, linked to that, they meant the way love and resentment   and distance and abandonment can infect any family, the way it could zoom in and   out of mothers and sons and daughters, like a storm whooshing sideways on a horizontal   force of its own, missing no one. So it was with his own family.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"My mother was   born in San Juan,\" Sammy Davis, Jr., proclaimed. But it was a lie, and he knew it.   She was born in New York City, of Cuban heritage. The Cuban ancestry, in the wake   of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, which saw President John F. Kennedy and Russian   leader Nikita Khrushchev battle to a standoff over nuclear arsenals, made Sammy nervous.   Anti-Cuban sentiment had swept the land. The Cuban-haters might begin to dislike   him, and Sammy was not in the business of losing admirers and fans. So he flipped   the Cuban history-telling relatives to keep quiet about it-with made-up Puerto Rican   history. And what the hell, he used the invented history for a joke that made many   laugh, all the while lancing piercingly into his own insecurities: \"My mother was   born in San Juan. So I'm Puerto Rican, Jewish, colored, and married to a white woman.\"   A pause for the punch line: \"When I move into a neighborhood, people start running   four ways at the same time.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All his life, he hewed to a talent that enabled more   than a few brilliantly tragic minstrel performers to endure: he had the mysterious   gift to laugh away a deep, nearly unfathomable pain that finds one scratching for   an identity while lost in the beguilingly lit world of make-believe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e .  .  .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sammy   Davis, Jr.'s, maternal grandmother was born Luisa Valentina Aguiar on February 14,   1884, at 111 Thompson Street in lower Manhattan. Her father, Enrique Aguiar, had   given her the middle name Valentina because she was born on Valentine's Day. Enrique,   born in Cuba, often talked of family wealth and respect back home in his native land.   He had handsome eyes, looked like a man who supremely believed in himself, and carried   himself with a regal bearing. Connecticut-born Ida Henderson had a soft round face   and long, lovely hair. Enrique first spotted her strolling past a Manhattan laundry   and gave pursuit. The romance led to marriage. Both Enrique and Ida were extremely   light-skinned and could have mixed with the white citizenry of Manhattan easily.   They made a striking couple walking in afternoon sunshine. Her pregnancy greatly   delighted both. Then came sudden tragedy: Ida died giving birth to Luisa.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Enrique   Aguiar had been very much in love with his wife, and her death devastated him. He   was now forced to ponder, alone, how he would care for his only child.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Enrique Aguiar   vowed to hold on to Luisa, and was proud of himself for doing so. The dynamic imbued   her with a fierce and independent spirit of her own. Over the years, Luisa's light   complexion and flowing hair would come to strongly resemble her mother's. The two   of them-Luisa would often talk of it in the decades to come-weathered the violent   blizzard of 1888 in New York City. The city suffered $20 million in damages during   that storm. Many, trudging home in feet-high snow, had been forced to find shelter   in the city's jails.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Like many Cubans living in New York City in 1898, Enrique Aguiar   couldn't have helped but notice the screaming newspaper headlines about the bombing   of the U.S. ship Maine while it was anchored in Havana Harbor, on the night of February   15. In the blast, 254 soldiers died instantly; eight more died later. The Maine was   in Havana on a fact-finding mission following constant reports of Cubans being abused   by the Spanish. A little less than a month before the explosion, the Spanish military   in Cuba destroyed the offices of four news-papers criticizing its presence. The attacks   sparked rioting, which alerted American diplomatic officials on the island.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Spain   had upward of 500,000 troops serving in the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba in   a desperate attempt to keep its imperialist grip on the region. The infamous Alfonso   Guards of Spain-who fancied wide-brimmed white sombreros-easily outdid the Cuban   insurgents, and over the years, every rebellion was put down. There were times when   the Alfonso Guards would line captured rebels up alongside a fort wall on bended   knee-faces toward the wall, hands tied behind them-and raise their heavy rifles.   The snap-crack of shots would fill the air, blood would color the dirt, and revolution   would be stayed for a while longer.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When Christopher Columbus discovered the Caribbean   in 1492, its lush vistas must have dazzled his senses. It was Diego Velázquez, however,   who would, in 1511, conquer the island for Spain and launch the Spanish Conquest.   In 1526, African slaves were brought into Cuba to work the coffee and sugar plantations.   Throughout the decades there would be slave and Indian uprisings. The islands of   Cuba intrigued antiabolitionists during the American Civil War. They had a peculiar   dream of annexing it and turning it into a slave-holding state. Disease eventually   vanquished the Indians of Cuba. (Sammy's maternal grandmother, Luisa Sanchez-née   Aguiar-was still, as a centenarian, reminding family members: \"I am Cuban-and Indian.\")   With the Indian gone-though still coursing through their blood-blacks and Hispanics   made up the Cuban populace. The Spanish delighted in pitting darker-skinned Cubans   against lighter-skinned Cubans, and in the Spanish press, there often appeared reports   of dark-skinned Cubans plotting uprisings. It became known as miedo al negro (\"fear   of the black\"). Light-skinned Cubans considered themselves members of the ruling   class, and it was from that class that Enrique Aguiar, father of Luisa, hailed.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Spanish officials denied involvement in the bombing of the Maine. In the blast's   aftermath, President William McKinley urged caution, but Theodore Roosevelt, his   assistant secretary of the navy, did not. The hyperactive Roosevelt browbeat administration   officials into readying for war. He sent cables, made speeches, and harangued those   close to McKinley. The Hearst news-papers urged war. William Randolph Hearst had   been lucky: Richard Harding Davis, a star American reporter, was in Havana when the   Maine was hit. Davis wrote feverishly, and Hearst ran emotional headlines that all   but urged America to action.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hearst's headlines were one thing, the words of Vermont   senator Redfield Proctor quite another. Politicians of both stripes respected Proctor.   He was not a man to idly commit American forces to foreign soil. On March 17, Proctor-who   was a close McKinley ally-addressed the Senate to report on his thoughts following   a trip to Cuba in the explosion's aftermath. He talked of the presence of concentration   camps in Cuba that were filled with thousands. He said the loss of the Maine was   tragic enough, but went on to say that if any appeal were made for war, it must be   made because of \"the spectacle of a million and a half of people, the entire native   population of Cuba, struggling for freedom and deliverance from the worst misgovernment   of which I ever had knowledge.\" It was simple yet stunning oratory coming from a   man of Proctor's revered caution. And it set loose whoops of war talk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Cuba Libre,\"   went one cry.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \"Remember the Maine \/ To hell with Spain!\" went another.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As screaming   headlines merged with patriotic fervor, it was becoming clear that Americans now   wanted the Spanish out of Cuba. Battleships were prepared, though the month of March   fell from the calendar with guns still silent. Crisscrossing the nation's capital   like a man possessed, Theodore Roosevelt predicted that the country would \"have this   war for the freedom of Cuba.\" Roosevelt rose before a podium at a Gridiron Dinner   and saw that Senator Mark Hanna, who was steadfastly opposed to war, was in attendance.   Roosevelt ran down a litany of reasons why it was necessary for America to enter   into battle. He assailed business interests, who he felt were screaming against a   declaration of war, and implied that Hanna himself was unduly sympathetic to those   interests. Realizing the sentiments of those in attendance at the dinner were in   his favor, Roosevelt turned to Hanna with a sneer and asked, sharply: \"Now, Senator,   may we please have war?\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Death pushes hearts in all directions. A man, any man,   scarred by the un-expected calamity of family death might well seek a strange kind   of adventure where the heat of life itself can be felt, minute by minute, hour upon   hour.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On April 21 the United States declared war on Cuba. McKinley asked\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e for volunteers.   Enrique Aguiar, a widowed father, had to choose between country-Cuba-and daughter,   Luisa. There were 125,000 who volunteered, and Enrique Aguiar was among them. He   placed his fourteen-year-old daughter with a New York City foster family and promised   her he would return. Then he left to go fight the Spaniards and free his countrymen.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e We do not know if Enrique Aguiar fought at the Battle of El Caney, or at the campaign   waged at Las Guasimas during the three-month Spanish-American War. We do not know   if he was, at any time, in the vicinity of San Juan Hill with Teddy Roosevelt and   his Rough Riders. We do not know if Enrique Aguiar, like other soldiers in the conflict,   was felled by yellow fever or malaria while in a makeshift hospital on the island.   But we do know this of Enrique Aguiar: he never returned home from the Spanish-American   War to his daughter, Luisa.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For months after the campaign's end, Luisa Aguiar would   gaze out windows and worry of her father's whereabouts. She would swear he was returning   to her, as he said he would. She had no other family in New York City. Maybe he was   arranging passage for her to Cuba. Or maybe the next knock at the door would be his   knuckles rapping. Or maybe a messenger was on his way just now with tickets for her   from New York to Tampa, where he was simply collecting himself in one of the city's   hotels, as so many men did coming and going from Cuba. She hoped and wished and dreamed,   and brushed away reports of his likely death. But there was no messenger, no telegram,   even as young Luisa continued to tell acquaintances that she knew her father was   returning to her. She was Catholic; she held to her faith.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But time passed, and   it was as if Enrique Aguiar had vanished from the face of the earth without a trace.   If Luisa Aguiar's world hadn't already cracked enough-boarding with a foster family   she did not like-the presumed death of her father must have been an unimaginable   blow. She couldn't quite let go, however, of the vision of her father striding into   her eyesight. \"My daddy,\" she would begin conversations in the years to come, before   trailing off. The habit, according to her granddaughters, would remain with her into   the tenth decade of her life. (Luisa Sanchez lived to be 112 years old.)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There was   a powerful reason Luisa Sanchez did not like her foster family: they beat her. Welts   and deep bruises appeared on her head. For her granddaughters, listening to the horror   stories became a huge part of their upbringing. First they would hear all about Enrique   and his disappearance. \"She never saw him again,\" says Gloria Williams, the granddaughter,   \"and that's the thing that made her cry.\" Then Gloria would be treated to tales of   Luisa's sufferings. \"She would point to her head, parting her hair, to show bruises.   She would say, 'Look. Look!' \" recalls Williams.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Fearful of running alone into the   streets of New York City, young Luisa Aguiar-a beauty, her skin a soft milky white-couldn't   help but hope she'd meet someone to take her away from her foster family. That person   was Marco Sanchez, himself of Cuban ancestry. Marco Sanchez sold Cuban cigars. Sometimes   he bartered them for liquor, which he sold-and drank in heavy quantities, as well.   Their marriage was tempestuous. Still, Luisa gave birth to four children, but only   two-Julia, born in 1899, and Elvera, born in 1905-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e survived beyond infancy. The   heavy-drinking Marco Sanchez didn't survive long either-he died of cirrhosis of the   liver, leaving behind a young widow and two daughters.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e First her father, now her   husband. Once again, feelings of being abandoned and left adrift washed over Luisa   Sanchez. But she was determined that such feelings would neither overwhelm nor defeat   her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By 1915, Luisa had found an apartment in Harlem, at 47 West 129th Street. Waves   of Negroes had recently started migrating to upper Manhattan. It wasn't that Luisa   followed the plight-or the momentum-of the Negro in New York. In fact, Luisa Sanchez   did not keep company with Negroes. Her move to Harlem was purely for economical reasons.   The rents were cheaper than in lower Manhattan. Sanchez found work as a personal   maid and dresser for Laurette Taylor, a much-admired Broadway actress. Born, like   Sanchez, in New York City in 1884, Taylor had made her New York stage debut at the   age of nineteen in a production of From Rags to Riches. For years she toured the   country in stock companies, honing her craft. On December 21, 1912, she opened on   Broadway at the Cort Theatre-it was that theater's grand\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e opening-in Peg o' My Heart,   an Irish family drama written by Hartley Manners. Taylor played Peg, and the role   made her a star. Sarah Bernhardt, the great French actress, came to see it and predicted   that \"within five years\" Taylor would become \"the foremost actress\" in America. The   play ran for 1,250 performances. Taylor had other memorable roles, in The Devil,   The Great John Ganton, and The Ringmaster. Her reputation soared. Directors wooed   her; she was an incandescent presence on a stage.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Being a personal maid for Taylor   came with perks: Sanchez traveled with the actress, dined with her in fine restaurants.   There was just enough color in Luisa's complexion that there were times she'd be   mistaken for a nonwhite-perhaps Mediterranean. She took being called Negro or Puerto   Rican as the worst kind of insult. \"We don't serve Negroes,\" a restaurateur once   said to Sanchez. \"I don't speak English,\" she replied, unrolling her stock answer.   \"I'm Cuban.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Meeting other actors and actresses-John Barrymore had seemed taken   with her beauty-delighted Luisa. Still, she was not one to swoon easily over men   or their advances. Her physical beauty was one thing, but inside she seemed possessed   of something hard and impenetrable. She did not have a timid tongue, and she was   noticeably temperamental. Suitors found out quickly enough she was fiercely independent.   Two men, on separate occasions, had each provided Luisa Sanchez with the services   of an automobile. Grateful though she may have been, she married neither man, though   both had hoped their generosity might move her heart. Relatives believed she had   been so shaken by her first marriage that she forever lost faith in the institution.","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302572675301,"sku":"NP9780804172516","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780804172516.jpg?v=1767729909","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/in-black-and-white-isbn-9780804172516","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}