Walking On Water:
Author Randall Kenan Explores Black America
On UNC-TV's North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, July 17, at 5 PM

In his book Walking On Water: Black American Lives at the Turn of the Twenty-First Century, author Randall Kenan sets out to answer a question that has long fascinated him: What does it mean to be black in America today? To find the answer, Kenan traveled across America over the course of six years—from Alaska to Louisiana, from Maine to Las Vegas—interviewing nearly two hundred African Americans. The result is an unprecedented picture of contemporary African American lives and experiences.

In an all-new episode of UNC-TV’s literary series North Carolina Bookwatch, Sunday, July 17, at 5PM, host DG Martin talks with Kenan about his eye-opening work—part oral history, part travelogue—and how it sensitively paints a portrait of black America at the end of the 20th century.

“[Answering the question of what it means to be black in America today] initially wasn’t supposed to take 6 years, but the question had been something that had been weighing on my mind for many years,” says Kenan. “A number of my friends and I would sit up late at night and would talk about what it means to be black…but often the simplest questions are the hardest.”

To shed light on the topic, Kenan took a broad geographical approach to interview subjects from every conceivable walk of life, traveling throughout America’s big cities and small towns and ending his journey in North Carolina, where he recounts his own family's story. From interviews with militant activists in Atlanta to the “movie folk” in Los Angeles and everyone in between, the Duplin County native’s talking travels illustrate not only of what it is to black, but what it is to be an American.

“I think growing up in a [small] town gives you a longing to travel and as soon as I got the chance I put my travel shoes on,” admits Kenan. “Ultimately, I realized, the best things come from wandering and serendipity.”

Randall Kenan grew up in Chinquapin, North Carolina, and graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has taught at Sarah Lawrence, Columbia University, Duke, and the University of Mississippi, and is now at the University of Memphis. He is the author of a novel, A Visitation of Spirits, and a collection of stories, Let the Dead Bury Their Dead, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1993. Among his awards are the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, a Whiting Writer's Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Prix de Rome. Kenan is currently an Associate Professor of English at UNC-Chapel Hill.

During this season of North Carolina Bookwatch, guests also include: Shannon Ravenel (New Stories from the South, 2005), Emily Herring Wilson (No One Gardens Alone), Ann B. Ross (Miss Julia’s School of Beauty), Lawrence Earley (Looking for Longleaf), Peter Perret (A Well Tempered Mind: Using Music to Help Children Listen and Learn), Timothy Tyson (Blood Done Sign My Name), Moreton Neal (Remembering Bill Neal: Favorite Recipes from A Life in Cooking), Quinn Dalton (Bulletproof Girl), Henry Petroski (Pushing the Limits: New Adventures in Engineering), Bill Morris (Saltwater Cowboys), Amy Tiemann (Mojo Mom), Robert F. Irwin (Robert F. Irwin 40 Years), Tommy Hays (The Pleasure Was Mine), Mary Kay Andrews (Hissy Fit), Jerry Shinn (Loonis! Celebrating a Lyrical Life), Michael Parker (If You Want Me to Stay), Lawrence Naumoff (A Southern Tragedy, in Crimson and Yellow), Martha Witt (Broken As Things Are) and Gerhard Weinberg (Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders).

Funding for North Carolina Bookwatch is provided by UNC-TV members and by Quail Ridge Books and Music, Raleigh’s independent, full service bookstore, bringing readers and writers together since 1984.

North Carolina Bookwatch is part of UNC-TV’s ongoing commitment to produce programs for and about North Carolina. UNC-TV is the statewide 11-station broadcast network of the University of North Carolina. For more information, please visit www.unctv.org/ncbookwatch.

—UNC-TV—