OSSIE: The Autobiography of a Black Woman

by Ossie & Caryl Ledner Guffy ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 24, 1971

Ossie's story while no means as exceptional as Maya Angelou's (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings) either in real life or on the page, has its own human interest in addition to its striking illustration of Moynahan's thesis. An impulsive, careless, stubborn girl, she was quick to compound the liabilities she inherited by being born black and apparently beautiful. As one of several young ones when her father died, she was left with a drinking grandfather who let a sister burn to death. Lesson one -- which would be repeated again and again -- that men were ""all cowards, all mouth and no guts"" and no sense of responsibility. She was still in high school when she married a weak man who left her with two children; a second man and a third child followed; a married man contributed a fourth baby and during its delivery one of the older children was killed; a gambler abandoned her to another pregnancy; and a better educated man walked out when he learned that he had fathered the next in line. Always there was a fight to stay alive and keep her children from welfare. Finally she met Guffy whom she respected as well as loved. He is the father of her next four children, and her husband, and now she is working in the interest of other youngsters with a Teen Post to teach them what she learned a much harder way. The life story has an inalienable strength -- hers.

Pub Date: May 24, 1971

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Norton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1971

Categories: NONFICTION