Vivian Baxter

Having no biological daughter, MA addressed this book to some women who mothered me through dark and bright days beginning with her biological grandmother and mother , one woman who allows me to be a...

The dedication thanks Vivian Baxter , who generously taught me how to be a mother, allowing me to dedicate this book to one of the most courageous and generous men I know, my son, Guy Bailey Johnson

MA 's mother, Vivian Baxter , worked as a nurse, professional gambler, bar owner and entertainer. She was the daughter of an almost-white woman who spoke all her life with the German accent of...

In the title-poem MA speaks for her race, or for all the wretched of the earth. It opens: You may write me down in history / With your bitter, twisted lies, / You may tread...

MA gave a starring role to her mother, Vivian Baxter , in Mom & Me & Mom, an episodic collection of anecdotes and aphorisms.

The events that led up to this book were the devastating murder of Martin Luther King and the success of MA 's tv series Black, Blues, Black. Then an editor at Random House suggested...