John Langston Gwaltney
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John Langston Gwaltney (September 25, 1928 – August 29, 1998) was an
African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...
writer and anthropologist focused on African-American culture, best known for his book '' Drylongso: A Self Portrait of Black America''.


Early life

Gwaltney lost his eyesight soon after birth and was the first blind student to attend his local high school in Newark, NJ.


Academic background

Gwaltney earned a BA from
Upsala College Upsala College (UC) was a private college affiliated with the Swedish-American Augustana Synod (later the Augustana Evangelical Lutheran Church) and located in East Orange in Essex County, New Jersey in the United States. Upsala was founded in ...
in 1952, an MA from the New School for Social Research in 1957, and in 1967 a Ph.D. in anthropology from
Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...
, where he won the Ansley Dissertation Award and studied under
Margaret Mead Margaret Mead (December 16, 1901 – November 15, 1978) was an American cultural anthropologist who featured frequently as an author and speaker in the mass media during the 1960s and the 1970s. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard C ...
, who called him "“a most remarkable man… homanages his life and work with extraordinary skill and bravery".Cole, Johnnetta B.
"John Langston Gwaltney (1928-1998)"
''American Anthropologist'', September 1999 Vol. 101 (3): 614-615''.
His dissertation on
river blindness Onchocerciasis, also known as river blindness, is a disease caused by infection with the parasitic worm ''Onchocerca volvulus''. Symptoms include severe itching, bumps under the skin, and blindness. It is the second-most common cause of blindne ...
among the Chinantec-speaking people in
Oaxaca Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
,
Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...
, eventually became his 1970 book ''Thrice Shy: Cultural Accommodation to Blindness and Other Disasters in a Mexican Community''. He was a professor of anthropology at the Syracuse University.


''Drylongso''

''Drylongso'' is a collection of Gwaltney's transcriptions of oral interviews with whom he described as "core black people", ordinary men and women who made up black America. In the interviews, he asked people to define their culture. The book includes a glossary of African American terms, and interviews with 41 people from the Northeast United States. The title is from an African-American word, "drylongso", which is used to mean "ordinary", in reference to the social status of the interviewees. In a terse introductory statement chosen by Gwaltney from an interviewee not included in the broader text, factory worker Othman Sullivan says "I think this anthropology is just another way to call me a nigger." The ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' described it as "The most expansive and realistic exposition of contemporary mainstream black attitudes yet published."


Bibliography

*''Thrice Shy: Cultural Accommodation to Blindness and Other Disasters in a Mexican Community''
Columbia University Press Columbia University Press is a university press based in New York City, and affiliated with Columbia University. It is currently directed by Jennifer Crewe (2014–present) and publishes titles in the humanities and sciences, including the fiel ...
(1970) *''Drylongso: A Self Portrait of Black America'', New York:
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
(1980). Reprinted by