A LMOST A DECADE HAS passed since this book was first published. As I mention in the original introduction, the
opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American
president of the Harvard Law Review. In the wake of some modest publicity, I received an advance from a publisher
and went to work with the belief that the story of my family, and my efforts to understand that story, might speak in
some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identitythe
leaps through time, the collision of c**tures-that mark our modern life.
Like most first-time authors, I was filled with hope and despair upon the book's publication-hope that the book might
succeed beyond my youthful dreams, despair that I had failed to say anything worth saying. The reality fell somewhere
in between. The reviews were mildly favorable. People actually showed up at the readings my publisher arranged. The
sales were underwhelming. And, after a few months, I went on with the business of my life, certain that my career as an
author would be short-lived, but glad to have survived the process with my dignity more or less intact.
I had little time for reflection over the next ten years. I ran a voter registration project in the 1992 election cycle,
began a civil rights practice, and started teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago. My wife and I bought
a house, were blessed with two gorgeous, healthy, and mischievous daughters, and struggled to pay the bills. When a
seat in the state legislature opened up in 1996, some friends persuaded me to run for the office, and I won. I had been
warned, before taking office, that state politics lacks the glamour of its Washington counterpart; one labors largely in
obscurity, mostly on topics that mean a great deal to some but that the average man or woman on the street can safely
ignore (the regulation of mobile homes, say, or the tax consequences of farm equipment depreciation). Nonetheless, I
found the work satisfying, mostly because the scale of state politics allows for concrete results-an expansion of health
insurance for poor children, or a reform of laws that send innocent men to death row-within a meaningful time frame.
And too, because within the capitol building of a big, industrial state, one sees every day the face of a nation in constant
conversation: inner-city mothers and corn and bean farmers, immigrant day laborers alongside suburban investment
bankers-all jostling to be heard, all ready to tell their stories.
opportunity to write the book came while I was in law school, the result of my election as the first African-American
president of the Harvard Law Review. In the wake of some modest publicity, I received an advance from a publisher
and went to work with the belief that the story of my family, and my efforts to understand that story, might speak in
some way to the fissures of race that have characterized the American experience, as well as the fluid state of identitythe
leaps through time, the collision of c**tures-that mark our modern life.
Like most first-time authors, I was filled with hope and despair upon the book's publication-hope that the book might
succeed beyond my youthful dreams, despair that I had failed to say anything worth saying. The reality fell somewhere
in between. The reviews were mildly favorable. People actually showed up at the readings my publisher arranged. The
sales were underwhelming. And, after a few months, I went on with the business of my life, certain that my career as an
author would be short-lived, but glad to have survived the process with my dignity more or less intact.
I had little time for reflection over the next ten years. I ran a voter registration project in the 1992 election cycle,
began a civil rights practice, and started teaching constitutional law at the University of Chicago. My wife and I bought
a house, were blessed with two gorgeous, healthy, and mischievous daughters, and struggled to pay the bills. When a
seat in the state legislature opened up in 1996, some friends persuaded me to run for the office, and I won. I had been
warned, before taking office, that state politics lacks the glamour of its Washington counterpart; one labors largely in
obscurity, mostly on topics that mean a great deal to some but that the average man or woman on the street can safely
ignore (the regulation of mobile homes, say, or the tax consequences of farm equipment depreciation). Nonetheless, I
found the work satisfying, mostly because the scale of state politics allows for concrete results-an expansion of health
insurance for poor children, or a reform of laws that send innocent men to death row-within a meaningful time frame.
And too, because within the capitol building of a big, industrial state, one sees every day the face of a nation in constant
conversation: inner-city mothers and corn and bean farmers, immigrant day laborers alongside suburban investment
bankers-all jostling to be heard, all ready to tell their stories.