ABSTRACT
Frank Yerby once wrote an excellent short story entitled 'Health Card'. Yerby's message comforts Conrad Kent Rivers through his long nights of endless wondering about himself, his future, and his race. It was Langston Hughes who first showed me the other side of the white coin. Praise Bessie and Dinah and Billie: Conrad Kent Rivers listened to the sorrow. Praise Miles and Jimmy Baldwin and Ralph Ellison: he glimpsed himself in newer and more experimental forms. Conrad Kent Rivers write about the Negro because he is a Negro, and he is not at peace with himself or his world. He is obsessed by the ludicrous and psychological behaviour of hated men. Conrad Kent Rivers do not wish to capitalize on race, nor does he wish to begin a Crimean War: he is only interested in recording the truth squeezed from his observations and experiences.
