Up from the Projects: An Autobiography by Walter E. Williams
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Books by men and women who started life with two strikes against them and managed to make something of themselves interest and inspire me. Walter Williams' memoir fits well in that category.
From the book cover:
From his lower-middle-class beginnings in a mixed but predominantly black neighborhood in West Philadelphia to his department chairmanship at George Mason University, the life of Walter E. Williams is an "only in America" story of achievement. In Up from the Projects, this nationally syndicated columnist and prolific author recalls some of the highlights and turning points of his life.
I hardly think life with a single mother in the notorious Philadelphia projects counts as middle class, not even lower. He was raised by his mother with his father nowhere in evidence. At age 10 his small family moved to North Philadelphia's violence-ridden Richard Allen housing projects (since demolished) where he was not a very dedicated student. He started college, but again, didn't particularly apply himself. He shaped up during a stint in the army and he went back to school with much more focus when he got out.
Williams earned his PhD at UCLA. He was then a self-described radical, much more in sympathy with Malcolm X than with Martin Luther King. But by the time he had finished his degree he had become a libertarian. He says now: I learned that you have to evaluate the effects of public policy as opposed to intentions.
He has taught economics at George Mason University since 1980.
2011 No 134
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