Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, (1974) dj. SIGNED hardcover first edition - A frank and vivid autobiography by an African American woman which shows the depths of racism's effects, from witnessing the murder of her mother as a 6 year old child through Jim Crow in Texas as the wife of a soldier, to the continuing desperate struggle for her family's survival. The dust jacket refers to it as "life on the bottom, told by a black woman who won't learn to quit." The introduction by Leo Hamilian describes how this book came to be: it began as an essay written by Jackson as part of the admissions process at the City College of New York emerged from an admissions essay, and Hamilian, the Dean involved, passed the essay to an editor at The Nation, which published it in May, 1968, and that resulted in Jackson received a book offer - she spent 5 years writing this book. INSCRIBED on the title page in December 1976: "To My Brother Gerald, Together we can win to make this a better world / Dare To Struggle! Dare To Win! Dare To Be You! Dare To See Tomorrow, I Do!/ 'Love Is A Circle of Sharing'/ from your sister in the struggle/ Harrisene 'Penny' Jackson." vii, 168 pp. A hard-to-find book, and scarce signed. ISBN: 0-139146970.