Profiles of Black Success: Thirteen Creative Geniuses Who Changed the World

The author of Profiles of Genius and Profiles of Female Genius now uses the same technique of delineating a subject's life into an oversimplified chart that lists, among other things, dominant trait, motto, philosophy, nickname, self-description, birth order and education to examine 12 successful African Americans, plus South Africa's Nelson Mandela. ""They were not helped by others,"" Landrum stresses. ""They did it themselves."" Included are Bill Cosby, Oprah Winfrey, Maya Angelou, Paul Robeson, Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson, Thurgood Marshall, Colin Powell, Shirley Chisholm and three businessmen, Berry Gordy, John Johnson and Reginald Lewis. Each subject is treated and rated individually, classified as either an introvert or an extrovert, a thinker or a feeler, and labeled Promethean, Apollonian, Dionysian or Epimethean. For example, Cosby, Jordan, Mandela, Marshall and Robeson are all Promethean Thinkers, and Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey are both Dionysian Feelers. All are presented as having overcome some childhood trauma to achieve ""creative success."" From his study of their lives, Landrum draws a number of tidy conclusions, among them: ""All of these subjects are devoutly religious"" and the ""Majority [is] not as sexually flaky or lecherous as whites."" The oversimplified self-help message throughout: ""Great people are bred, not born. They learn to achieve."" Photos not seen by PW. (Mar.)