My American Life

From Rage to Entitlement

Price M. Cobbs, M.D., coauthor, with William H. Grier, of Black Rage -- one of the twentieth century's most profound examinations of black life in America -- has been a witness to some of the most important events in American history.
Now, thirty years later, for the first time he reconsiders his extraordinary life and career, offering a moving account of his journey -- as one of the nation's foremost authorities in the field of psychiatry -- from rage to entitlement.
An African American pioneer in the field of psychiatry, Dr. Cobbs in his lifetime has grown up during the Great Depression, felt the dramatic effects of World War II, and witnessed the dismantling of Jim Crow laws and the impact of Brown vs. Board of Education. He watched the rise of Martin Luther King Jr. and the heroism of Rosa Parks in the civil rights movement. He followed the life of Malcolm X and "searched avidly for what animated the ideas beneath his fiery rhetoric." Every experience of his early life and education led to an auspicious partnership with a colleague, William H. Grier, who shared his convictions and the work involved in producing what the New York Times would call "one of the most important books on [blacks]."
Written at the height of the black power movement, Black Rage has sold over one million copies and remains a relevant study of race relations. Dr. Cobbs has lived through decades of profound social, political, and cultural transformation in America. A second-generation doctor, Cobbs has at once written a classic portrait of an amazing family and the making of a healer and community and business leader. As a psychiatrist, he has pioneered methods for studying the psychology of race and gender. So, while My American Life is a heartfelt memoir of a loving father and husband, it is also a chronicle of the black experience in America.