The Apocalypto Kid Goes to College by Grant Harper Reid is an intriguing autobiography about one man’s quest to get a college education. Upon graduation from high school, Grant attends Lincoln University. However, after only three disappointing days at Lincoln, Grant returns home to Teaneck, New Jersey. To his surprise, his family has been evicted from their home. He ends up sitting on the sidewalk with his luggage. Determined to follow his dream, he decides to enroll at Marquette University far away in the mid-west. What follows is a tumultuous journey as he experiences the struggles of being a black student at a predominantly white college campus. The awkward teenage boy has to grow up fast and become a mature college graduate. This is his story.
There's the honesty (author Grant Reid doesn't care what anyone thinks, opposite of political correctness or imitation of anyone else's style, no adherence to what's cool or acceptable, all his own thing) and poetry I remember from his film work at Bard College. Just what I was hoping to find!
In “The Apocalypto Kid Goes to College,” Mr. Reid revisits remarkable places and times and does them justice and then some, bringing the ambiance and especially the people to the page vividly- where they seem at times even more lifelike than the real thing. That’s Grant Reid’s gift of language. He can make us perceive in a heightened way, get our senses and mind working better than usual. That’s his art at work. But most of all it is the story, his own experience of youth that works on the reader, keeps him or her riveted, book open, everything else pushed away to let what he says come through without distraction, at full force. What the author gives us, honestly, openly, with a kind of innocence or wonder this reader found compelling, in fact beautiful, is the world through the lens of his character at age twenty. It’s quite a feat he has pulled off, and reflecting on it I see that his excellent sleight of hand is the superimposing of the personal and the objective worlds. As we read and consider Grant Reid’s point of view (which I can guarantee is unlike any you’ve known before, at least not up so close), we revisit our own thoughts and feelings about the world we inhabited along with him- at least I did, having gone to the same college in the same years- and wonder in turn that there was so much more to see.
Grant Reid has done us a service in sharing what it is no exaggeration to call a spiritual journey, the story of a man coming of age, with all the pain and joy that involves. “The Apocalypto Kid Goes to College” is an adventure Mr. Reid makes ours as well, an account of risk taking, fear and faith in himself and in something beyond. This memoirist doesn’t pull punches. He’s frank about his own fumbles, shortcomings, rough in his self-criticisms, yet we share with him the confidence that he will grow strong. We watch him learn, root for him, come to care for the underdog hero. And his clear-eyed, unflinching self-appraisal makes his depictions of others, both praise and criticism, ring true. The book resonates with truth. And it is also funny as hell throughout. And to call the language colorful may be the understatement of the year. Do yourself a favor and help yourself to “The Apocalypto Kid Goes to College” on the double.
Advice to the reader: Don’t hurry. I found the memoir hard to put down but forced myself to read slowly, both to miss nothing and to portion the pleasure out over a few days. Who wants to eat a delicious feast- dessert, maybe a rich cake a better comparison- in one sitting, even though you easily could! Kevin Latrop
Dr. Grant Harper Reid is an excellent writer. I have enjoyed his other two books "Rhythm For Sale" and "The Harlem Bible". But this book is so riveting because I met him at Bard College and graduated two years ahead of him. People, Dr Reid writes with with great animation, clarity and directness. He gave me memories. I did not realize what he actually was experiencing, but I knew upon first meeting him that we would remain friends a long time. If he was seated before me I would give him a big brotherly hug. We both had our own deep experiences and like him I had to keep mine to myself.
Everything Dr. Grant Harper Reid is writing about is absolutely real.
All I could say is that it takes courage to write about these deep rooted experiences with such vividness and truth. Excellent job Dr Grant Harper Reid. Wow I thought your first two book were amazing...this one is a deep dive. God Bless You and I am glad we were divinely directed to meet each other at Bard College and here we are today. We lived through some rough stuff but we are older and can actually talk about it. By Bishop Francis E. Revels-Bey
Leonard Harper the subject of Rhythm For Sale get a New York Street. Leonard Harper Way Honors Legendary Harlem Producer
132nd Street and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard in Harlem is now co-named Leonard Harper Way. The new name pays tribute to Harper, who was an influential black producer, director and choreographer during the Harlem Renaissance. He worked and died on that corner. Harper’s grandson Grant, who wrote the book “Rhythm For Sale” about his grandfather, helped unveil the new street sign. "Leonard Harper Way" Unveiling In Harlem (harlemworldmagazine.com)
Leonard Harper (April 9, 1899, Birmingham, Alabama – February 4, 1943, Harlem, New York) was a producer, stager, and choreographer in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 1930s. Harper's works spanned the worlds of vaudeville, cabaret, burlesque and Broadway musical comedy. As a dancer, choreographer and studio owner, he coached many of the country's leading performers, including Ruby Keeler, Fred Astaire and Adele Astaire, and the Marx Brothers. He produced floor shows and theatrical revues both uptown in Harlem and downtown on Broadway's Great White Way. He co-directed and staged the ensemble segments of The Exile and the short film Darktown Revue with Oscar Micheaux. Harper staged for Broadway Hot Chocolates at the Hudson Theatre and was the premiere producer who opened up the Cotton Club. He also produced Lindy Hop revues and an act called Harper's Lindy Hoppers at the Savoy Ballroom, as detailed in his biography Rhythm For Sale.
Harper was born in 1899 in Birmingham, Alabama, to William Harper, a performer, and his wife. Harper started dancing as a child to attract a crowd on a medicine show wagon, traveling with the show throughout the South. In 1915, he first toured in New York City, and quickly moved to Chicago. There he began choreographing and performing dance acts with Osceola Blanks of the Blanks Sisters, who became the first black act for the Shubert Brothers. He married Osceola Blanks in 1923. Harper and Osceola Blanks performed in his first big revue, Plantation Days, when it opened at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem in 1922–23. He began producing floor shows in Harlem and New York thereafter. From 1923 to 1924, Harper offered the Duke Ellington Orchestra the house band position at the speakeasies, Connie's Inn in Harlem and the Kentucky Club in Times Square. He was producing shows there and the Duke Ellington orchestra played as the house band at the Kentucky Club for the next four years. At the suggestion of drummer Sonny Greer, Duke Ellington and his wife Edna along with their son Mercer Ellington were lived in one of Harper's Harlem apartment bedrooms in the early 1920s.
By 1925, Harper owned a Times Square dance studio where black dancers taught their dances to white performers. As a nightclub and Broadway producer, Harper counted Billie Holiday, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Bill Robinson, Harold "Stumpy" Cromer of Stump and Stumpy and Count Basie among his colleagues. He introduced Louis Armstrong and Cab Calloway to New York show business, and worked with Mae West, Josephine Baker, Lena Horne, Fats Waller and Eubie Blake. Harper was part of the transition team when the Deluxe Cabaret was turned into the Cotton Club, producing two of its first revues during its opening. His biggest milestone on the Great White Way was his staging of the Broadway hit Hot Chocolates, which established the classic Broadway show tunes "Black and Blue" and "Ain't Misbehavin'". Harper was one of the leading figures who transformed Harlem into a cultural center during the 1920s. His nightclub productions took place at Connie's Inn, the Lafayette Theatre, the new Apollo Theatre, and other theatres in New York. He had a daughter, Jean Harper, out of wedlock with Fannie Pennington. Harper died in Harlem, New York, on February 4, 1943, and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. conducted his funeral at the Abyssinian Baptist Church.
