Long Time Coming: A Black Athlete's Coming-Of-Age in America

This is a sports memoir insofar as Walker was an All-American basketball player at Bradley University and a star for the Philadelphia 76ers and the Chicago Bulls from 1962 to 1975. But collaborating with Messenger, a professor of English at the University of Illinois, he tells of his personal growth, from childhood as the youngest of 10 children in a rural Mississippi family, to his teenage years in a housing project in Benton Harbor, Michigan, to his college career on a largely white, conservative campus, to the pros. A man of intelligence and sensitivity, according to Messenger, he has not lived with a racial chip on his shoulder, but his race has clearly been a defining element in his life. Like most African Americans, Waker has had to confront racial prejudice nearly every day. Now, as a successful Hollywood TV and movie producer, he feels he has finally found peace within himself. A powerful work. (June)