Ely: An Autobiography (Brown Thrasher Books)

Ely (pronounced "E-lee") Green's biography is crucial to an understanding of an "aristocratic" (his word, used favorably) academic community and its separate black community in Sewanee, Tennessee, between the time of Ely's birth in 1893 until he flees Sewanee in 1911. To a greater degree, it is crucial to an understanding of conflicting biases and religious tenants which strain against them as presented through the innocence and honesty of a young biracial man. Ely is strong. He fights "sagers" (rednecks) who call him a "n...." and shuns those who call him a bastard. He is a man of principles even as he struggles--often at the feet of wise clerics--to discover what exactly those principles are or ought to be. Ely Green is a black Huck Finn, resourceful, resilient, and clever.An extended biography ("Ely: Too Black, Too White") continues beyond Ely's hasty departure from Sewanee and covers his life in Texas and California.

Needed this for school !!cheapest one I could find thanks!!

Loved this book. In a pure, clear voice, Elisha Green -- a young man who was 1/2 black, 1/2 white -- tells the story of his life a hundred years ago in the small university town of Sewanee, TN.

Sewanee, T.N. is currently known for the school there by the same name (or a.k.a. University of the South). However, when Ely Green, the subject and author, was growing up in the early 1900's, his little town of Sewanee was everything to him, and not just the school but the people too, and more. Even in the tumultuous times Ely clinged to this idea of a beautiful sanctuary, but being black in a small southern town was still no picnic, even in this quasi-oasis of Sewanee.Ely, in a distinct (and mostly accurate) format tells of his life from his birth till his early twenties. He tells of how he was born of an anonymous white man, a local noble of Sewanee, and his black mother, whom died when Ely was young. Ely also tells how this mixed-heritage placed him in a quandary where the other African American distanced themselves from him, while the wealthy whites for the most part appreciated him. And Ely also tells how isolation seemed to come like the tides.But that is merely a small part of Ely's past as he describes in much more detail his unusual life and that of his favorite town and estranged mother, Sewanee. Because few have ever had a life like Ely, and until this book few would of ever known of one such as Ely's either.