Book Description

About the Book In From Red Dirt: An Autobiographical Narrative and Verse of a Georgia Son is a tribute to the Harlem Renaissance writer Jean Toomer, whose setting of the novel Cane (1923) begins in rural Sparta, Georgia. This location is approximately 70 miles from the author’s hometown of Augusta. While the book is autobiographical, Briggs uses both a narrative and poetry format to describe and reflect on significant phases of his childhood, educational, interpersonal, and professional experiences, and recent visit to Kenya with Abokin, a group of missionaries endorsed by his church. This unique narrative will be quite intriguing to the individual who values the importance of family and interpersonal relationships but experiences immense challenges, knowingly and unknowingly, within those relationships. Briggs’s story presents his own perspective on growing up in the segregated South of the 1950s and 1960s, reveals how our individual decisions may impact our lives, and explores God’s purpose for all of us if we should choose to be patient and to listen to Him. About the Author Cordell A. Briggs is a product of Seventh-day Adventist higher education and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. He graduated from Oakwood University, Andrews University, and Howard University. Briggs is Professor Emeritus of English at Moreno Valley College, Riverside Community College District, in Riverside, California. Throughout his forty-year career in higher education, he taught English, American literature, African American literature, and linguistics at the community college and university levels. Briggs has two wonderful and successful adult children. He has three delightful grandsons and one precious granddaughter. He has spent much of his time lately being involved with Abokin, Inc., the SDA missionary group that does volunteer work in the areas of evangelism, health care ministry, and education in Africa.