African American Humor: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today

. Lawrence Hill Books, $18.95 (448pp) ISBN 978-1-55652-431-8

""If I really want to scare the hell out of my white friends, I drive out to the suburb they live in and walk down their street slowly, carrying the real estate section of the New York Times."" This bon mot from 1960s comedian Godfrey Cambridge (1933-1978) is among the many jokes, snaps, comedy sketches, satires and folk anecdotes gathered in African American Humor: The Best Black Comedy from Slavery to Today. Selected by editor and writer Mel Watkins (On the Real Side), the witticisms come from such luminaries as Zora Neale Hurston, Satchel Paige, Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor, Damon Wayans and many others. ()

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