Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
INCLUSION MILESTONES
1964
• Conscientious Objector Ali becomes heavyweight champ
• Title VII bans discrimination
• Takemoto Mink is first Asian American woman in Congress
• LBJ declares War on Poverty
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Shout out to John O. Killens who was almost the first Black Pulitzer novelist for "And Then We Heard the Thunder."
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No Pulitzer Fiction Award.
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/03/15/home/halberstam-pulitzer.html
Can you identify the 1964 Pulitzer Fiction finalists?
First time since 1917 that no Pulitzer prize was awarded in three fields of art.
“And Then We Heard the Thunder" is 495 pages.
"We felt there was nothing worth a prize in those categories” comment attributed to Newbold Noyes Jr., editor, of the Washington Star by the New York Times, May 5, 1964
“‘And Then We Heard the Thunder,’ the second novel by John Oliver Killens, is the African American ‘From Here to Eternity.’ Published in 1963, it portrays the lives of black soldiers during World War II much as James Jones's far-better-known novel portrays the lives of white soldiers. Both books are raw, crude, overwrought and overweight, yet undeniably powerful.”
“The Thunder of Protest Without the Lightening of Art,” Washington Post, Jonathan Yardley, July 24, 2003
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2003/07/24/the-thunder-of-protest-without-the-lightning-of-art/ab25826d-1a8a-46a9-9749-828155d0558c/
Serve 60s favs: fondue, chicken a la king, pigs in a blanket.
"One advisory board member, Sevellon Brown, associate editor of The Providence Journal, was unable to attend the voting… Mr. Brown said he had written the board suggesting it would be a pity to pass up both the stage and fiction entries, and he offered the nomination of a novel, "And Then We Heard the Thunder," by John O. Killens. Mr. Killens's work, about a Negro soldier's battle against discrimination in World War II, was understood to have been under strong consideration by the fiction jury, but to have encountered criticism on technical grounds. Had Mr. Killens won, he would have become the first Negro Pulitzer Prize novelist. ‘What the hell has happened to the cultural explosion?’ Mr. Brown asked.” - New York Times, May 5, 1964
Find somewhere with a 1960s look, say a place with green appliances, big funky lamps, gold shag carpet, and or paisley wallpaper.
Time travel to see the first Mustang unveiled at the 1964 New York World's Fair.
“Mad Men”
"And Then We Heard the Thunder," by John O. Killens