Authors!  Profiling Flint ANd Genesee County's Rich Literary Tradition

Our Second Author in This Series of Articles

Flint and Genesee County is famous for a variety of things:  cars, coneys, athletes, and music.  In fact, the arts also loom large in the area’s legend. But among the arts, writing and writers are often left out of the conversation. That's an almost unforgivable omission, because the art of writing is among the Flint area’s greatest gifts to the humanities.

Indeed, books by Flint authors have covered the broad spectrum of American history and interaction for well over 100 years. But this literary gift isn’t just relegated to Flint-based or birthed authors. Rather, books about Flint and Flint people also factor in to the equation to craft a rich mosaic of expression exemplified by written words.

This experience includes a vast palette of genres including the obvious one - books, but also poetry, screenwriting, and music. Some of this has found its audience locally, others have had national appeal, and in other cases international attention. As a result, the work has gained notice for its skill, and diversity of topic and author.

by Gary L. Fisher, Vice President, Genesee County Historical Society

---

First in the Series:

Arthur Jerome Eddy

---

David Blight: Flint's Pulitzer Prize-winning Son

When you are talking about writing there are a host of measures that you can use to assess quality. Certainly the big three would be book sales, reviews, and awards. When it comes to that third measure, the Pulitzer Prize has to rank at the top of the list, and that is exactly what David Blight achieved with his monumental biography of Frederick Douglass and the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for history.

​Blight’s  book, Prophet of Freedom is perhaps the definitive story of one of America’s most important historical figures. A former slave, activist, writer, speaker, political influencer, he loomed larger in the nation’s conscience before, during, and after the Civil War. He held a unique and influential relationship with President Abraham Lincoln, and his efforts effected great change.

Blight has been telling Douglass’s story for years; he’s uniquely qualified to do so. He is currently the Sterling Professor of American History at Yale University, Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale. In 2013-2014 he was the Professor of American History at Cambridge University in England

Early Life

Growing up on Flint’s East Side, Blight was less focused on history and writing than he was on baseball. He went on to a stellar career at Flint Central, and then Michigan State. But he credits his parents for never letting sports completely overwhelm the importance of academic excellence. He was also deeply connected to the blue collar Flint experience living across from AC Spark Plug, while growing up in the American Heritage Trailer Park. This led to a career after Michigan State teaching at Flint Northern High School, while he finished post graduate studies.

Some Examples of Blight's Written Body of Work

Dedication to his craft

This Flint heritage has informed his work ethic and understanding of the worlds that he writes about. To say he is "accomplished" would be dramatically understating the fact. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, he’s also garnered a host of other literary awards, and been involved in multiple high profile writing projects and books including:

• Race and Reunion - Recipient of eight book awards including the Bancroft Prize, the Abraham Lincoln Prize, and the Frederick Douglass Prize, as well as four awards form the Organization of American Historians, including the Merle Curti Prizes for both Intellectual and Social History.
• A Slave No More - Garnered three book prizes, including the Connecticut Book Award for non-fiction.
• A People and a Nation - Bestselling history textbook for the college-level, published by Houghton Mifflin.
• Work as an advisor and editor for the Bedford Books series of teaching books

His involvement in the writing and storytelling realm is beyond extensive and includes writing op ed’s for The New York Times, The New York Daily News among others.  He’s also a frequent book reviewer for The New York Times, Washington Post Book World, Chicago Tribune, The Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and the Boston Globe.

The PBS documentaries Death and The Civil War, Africans in America, and The Reconstruction Era, among others have featured Blight as a consultant. He also lectures and speaks all over the world on the Civil War, Reconstruction, race relations, Frederick Douglass, while teaching everyone from Park Rangers to historians along the way.

While Blight has written other books, all with great acclaim, it will be hard to top Prophet of Freedom and the Pulitzer Prize. The book is remarkable in many ways, including the utilization of work that no other historians have ever leveraged or even explored, such as recently discovered issues of Douglass’s own newspapers.

In telling the tale, he delves in to the rather complicated personal life of Douglass, his two marriages and extended family, his deployment of theology and Biblical storytelling, historical perspective and oratory greatness. All in all it’s a tremendous story, told properly, and by a Flintstone who understands the importance of both elements.

Written by:  Gary L. Fisher

About Gary:  A man of many talents, Gary runs a wealth advisory office in downtown Flint, he is a Flint historian, the radio host of Fish & the Flint Chronicles, and President of the Genesee County Historical Society.