In this spellbinding memoir, activist educator and former All-American sprinter John Telford recounts his battles against bigots, his sometimes scandalous love affairs, and his fights for racial equality.
Dr. Telford is the only retired executive educator in America—black or white, urban or suburban—who dared and cared enough to return to a tough inner-city high school to teach, and he was still doing it in his seventies. He often has been called the Jonathan Kozol of the high school. An amateur boxer who was raised in the tough near-west side of Detroit and incarcerated as a teen, he was expelled from one Motown high school for fighting but rose to become a world-ranked sprinter, meet a Pope, lead suburban school districts, and direct programs working to reform the city’s street gangs and rehabilitate parolees. While he has received many high honors and accolades, he never lost the common touch.
John Telford has run on many tracks during his tumultuous seventy-three years—not all of them always the right ones. He outran Olympic champions, hosted radio shows, appeared on television, wrote over one thousand newspaper columns, coached and taught in ghetto schools and in colleges, led school districts and social service agencies, and fought for urban school reform and minority rights.
But he also was incarcerated as a teen, was expelled from a Detroit high school for brawling with an administrator, made indiscreet and indiscriminate love with other men’s wives, was attacked for his controversial educational and social initiatives and for hiring black administrators in white schools, and was fired from a suburban superintendency for recruiting Detroit students against the wishes of white residents.
Dr. Telford pulls no punches telling his often scandalous, sometimes humorous, yet poignant and inspiring life story—which former Detroit Mayor Dennis Archer calls “spellbinding!”, Michigan state senator Hansen Clarke calls “unadulterated dynamite!”, and a former ACLU national legal director calls “a triumphant tale of racing, rebellion, and raw courage.” In this blockbuster autobiography, an electrifying educator, athlete, lover, and poet bares his soul. Once you start reading it, you won’t be able to stop!
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