Jesse B. Simple, Simple to his fans, made weekly appearances beginning in 1943 in Langston Hughes' column in the Chicago Defender. Simple may have shared his readers feelings of loss and dispossession, but he also cheered them on with his wonderful wit and passion for life.
From his familiar perch in a fictional Harlem bar, Simple held forth on a variety of subjects—low wages, interracial marriage, birth control, race riots, the police—then central to Black life in urban America. Many decades later, Simple's concerns are, startlingly, still ours, and his voice, ringing with poetic wisdom and humor, reminds us of the rich African-American folk tradition Langston Hughes helped to revive. This brilliantly edited collection by Akiba Sullivan harper brings together the best stories from a number of Simple volumes long out of print and a few never before published.
Its feel is so contemporary and relevant to American life one must marvel at Hughes's ability to pass through the barrier of time.