Contents

Acknowledgments

Author's Note

1. The Black Bourgeois Blues

2. The Research Begins, 1995

3. The Early Career of J. Ernest Wilkins

4. Chicago

5. I Discover a New Ancestor

6. Memphis, Tennessee, 1874–1878

7. The Renegade Baptist, 1885–1887

8. The People's Temple, 1887–1888

9. The Bigamist, 1889–1915

10. St. Louis

11. Farmington, Missouri

12. Blackness

13. J. Ernest Wilkins in Washington, 1953–1955

14. In Washington, 1955–1957

15. The Civil Rights Commission, 1957–1958

Epilogue

Notes

Bibliography

Index