Low Road by Eddie B. Allen Jr

Author:Eddie B. Allen, Jr.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publisher

One chapter for me to remember is the one dealing with young people nodding … Again, try and reveal the sickening, the madness, the horror of drug addiction in the ghettoes … It’s a fact that whitey has no idea of just how many young, black men are getting dependent on heroin.

—Typewritten memo, titled “Black Rage of Hatred,” by Donald Goines

Holloway House Publishing Company was located in a rather inconspicuous, gray building at 8060 Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles, not far from the rocky hills where some of the most extravagant homes in California were tucked away. A person would have to really know the city or be involved in the book business to make an association upon hearing no more than the business’s name. Holloway House went about its work rather quietly in the commercial district that served as its neighborhood. Not even too many of the taxi drivers who cruised the area could identify the building from recollection in the way they could identify nearby bars, restaurants, or shopping outlets. Actually, there was no real reason for employees to attract attention with their comings and goings. It was a relatively small operation, especially in light of how the best-known publishing companies ran their business in the 1970s. Most of them were set up a full coast away in New York City. They drew upon the history of the area as a diverse and creative community, along with its status as a destination for artists, musicians, and literary types. California, on the other hand, was more driven by the entertainment industry as a professional component. Hollywood beckoned countless numbers of aspiring actors, screenwriters, directors, and models. Film and television had become increasingly lucrative business with the likes of Warner Bros., Universal Studios, MGM and 20th Century Fox maintaining a significant presence in the region. Dozens of features were produced annually and distributed to movie theaters nationwide, while everything from Bugs Bunny cartoons to Coca-Cola commercials and episodes of Columbo were regularly broadcast into America’s living rooms. Of particular interest was the new genre of movies and TV shows generated in Hollywood that reflected a different stage of black attitude and thought emerging in the real world. Shiftless, shameless, and embarrassing characters were replaced with proud and defiant heroes and antiheroes. Even the complexions of those who made it to the screen became darker as actors like Sidney Poitier broke into the mainstream. A Bahamas native, Poitier learned his way around the stage, originating the role of proud but stubborn Walter Lee Younger in the Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s acclaimed play. Later, he costarred opposite white actors and actresses in the films In the Heat of the Night, To Sir with Love, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

Poitier represented a sort of quiet, reserved, and dignified black man. When his police officer character in In the Heat of the Night was asked by racist southern cops how he was addressed among more liberal colleagues, he kept his cool, but replied: “They call me Mr.

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