PAMELA NEWKIRK
A Love No Less

Author Pamela Newkirk discusses A LOVE NO LESS, a delightful treasury of fifty letters written by well-known figures and ordinary folk.

Read below as Newkirk talks about this collection--one that resonates with joy and tenderness--and offers glimpses into the lives of black Americans throughout the last two centuries.

Love Letters are, by their very nature, intensely private. To read the love letters of others is to eavesdrop on the most heartfelt of exchanges. This collection allows us to partake in an otherwise forbidden pursuit, offering us rare glimpses of the emotional lives of strangers while they demystify and reveal as poignantly vulnerable some of the larger-than-life public personalities from the past--from civil rights leader Mary Church Terell to James Weldon Johnson. Many of the letters in this collection are decorously penned by hand accentuating their intimacy and distinctiveness. At a time when many of our exchanges transpire over the Internet or by cell phone, these letters recall a time when letters were lovingly crafted by the writer, and eagerly anticipated and savored by the recipient. We are reminded that love letter writing may, in fact, be a dying art. Still, these letters--which span more than two centuries--capture a timeless, primal, and universal emotion. As we review these relics of passion, we are connected to our shared humanity--to our highest calling as humans.

The idea for this collection grew both out of my passion for history and letters, and by the void in popular literature of love letters written by African Americans. We know African Americans have sung, the blues, have marched against injustice, and have turned to God in the face of oppression. We know that some have soared in the arts, business, and sports while others have been bowed and broken by the weight of adversity. But through it all, African Americans have loved, and they have done so in ways no less pure and marvelous than others. This book is a testament to the love that has survived the hardships of slavery, war, discrimination, and poverty.

Some of the letters in this volume were written by or to celebrated African Americans, like turn-of-the-century poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, 1930s screen legend Fredi Washington, Harlem Renaissance writers James Weldon Johnson and Countee Cullen, civil rights leader Mary Church Terrell. Others were written by lesser-known African Americans from diverse backgrounds--including slaves, soldiers, and surgeons. Through these letters--gleaned from dusty attics, photograph albums, and archives across the country--we bear witness to the love that has sustained African Americans throughtout their turbulent history in the United States. While this aspect of African American life is underrepresented in mainstream culture, this collection is a tribute to its divine and enduring presence through the ages.

A LOVE NO LESS
Copyright 2003 by Pamela Newkirk
A Doubleday Hardcover
0-385-50379-2