European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - April 14, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Ric Hampson associated press t to decades after the publication of manchild in the promised land the author walks the mean streets of Harlem and meets anew manchild More terrifying than anyone in his autobiography. Claude Brown was the original manchild a Black youth growing up fast in Harlem a confessed liar bully thief Pothead Street fighter truant and con Man a Friend of pimps whores and junkies whose Mother s favorite question was boy Why you so bad but that did not prepare him for the manchild of today a human Paradox More sophisticated More knowledgeable More sensitive More amicable and More Likely to commit  when i was coming up in the Early 50s we fought All the time but we weren t trying to kill each other Brown recalls. Guys walk around now with sawed off shotguns and .357 magnums and they re killing Over radios and  to people like Brown s parents Rural Blacks fleeing poverty and oppression in the depression South Harlem and other Northern ghettos really seemed like a promised land. But 50 years later standing on a Harlem sidewalk Brown a Short Stocky 48-year-old whose dark Goatee and hair Are flecked with Gray laments a dreadful land where the manchild has become an Urban  driving through Central Harlem s streets or standing a Phoui Claude Brown on some of its Corners it is easy to see Why. Since Brown s Man childhood almost everything has gotten worse. The population of the teeming vital slum in which Brown was raised declined As those with enough Money moved out. On some streets lined by hollow buildings or rubble strewn lots a Post Industrial dark age seems to have dawned. But it is the youths who roam these streets that concern Claude Brown. Largely uneducated virtually homeless chronically criminal and habitually violent wanting Money to buy athletic shoes or designer jeans they Are the kids who Are making the City a terrifying place to live in Brown says. Studies by Ohio state University and University of Pennsylvania sociologists have shown that these Young Urban felons Are increasingly violent sometimes taking victims Money and their lives. But it was so callous so cynical that i had a difficult time grasping it for a while Brown says. When he suggested to one teen age convict the inevitable futility of his life of violent crime Brown was stunned by the response if i get caught or maimed i become the state s responsibility if i m killed my problems Are really Over. His attitude was what the hell " Brown marvels in his Raspy voice. It s an attitude he had to sell himself on to do what he did every Day. He s conned himself into thinking i be got nothing to lose. I m going for broke when i was coming up a kid would be taken in by an older hoodlum in an apprenticeship and he d learn. The Dos and Don to of a stick up Brown explains. The first thing you d learn from your Mentor would be the reason for bringing a gun. So you can shoot somebody no Man wrong. So you won t have to shoot somebody. If you killed someone it was a grand Faux Pas. People would say what happened Man you weren t supposed to do  Claude Brown started Early. He was expelled from school at 8, admitted to a Street gang at 9, sent to a school for wayward boys at 11, shot in the leg during a burglary at 13, confined to Reform school at 14. But the manchild matured. He threw away his gun stopped stealing went to night school gave up drugs got a Job moved out of Harlem took up the piano and began to write. The idea for manchild was born in 1961 when an editor at Macmillan read a Magazine article Brown had written. He took Brown to lunch and tried to persuade him to write a Book. I d never written anything longer than a 20-Page Short Story but after the third scotch i said of it s your Money " and accepted a $2,000 Advance Brown recalls. Two years later he had a 1,537-Page manuscript Replete with Slang dialect and profanity which he delivered to the publisher in a grocery Box. Nobody at Macmillan wanted to touch it and no one knew what to do with it Brown says. They sat on it for a year. They called it Claude Brown s Box of groceries " eventually a new editor Alan Rinzler was assigned. There was literally nothing like it Rinzler recalls. Wright and James Baldwin had written about this sort of thing but they were writers he says. This was a Street person and it seemed totally authentic funny violent  manchild in the promised land was an immediate hit. The civil rights movement was cresting in 1965, along with White America s interest in Black America and Black America s interest in itself. With Little Advance publicity the Book reached no. 5 on the new York times Best seller list and went on to sell about 3 million copies Many to the High school and College students for whom manchild was must Reading. Meanwhile Brown who had enrolled at Stanford Law school was overwhelmed by his sudden celebrity. I was getting More mail than the president he says. A lot of it said manchild has changed my life " the Telephone rang constantly with speaking offers and requests for radio or television interviews. Prisoners at sing sing staged a protest to demand copies of the Book. He became quite a Media Star Rinzler says. He was always being asked for his opinion about everything even though he was Young and relatively inexperienced. It was hard for him to  Brown slipped Back East and quietly enrolled in Rutgers Law school. The Media sought new Black voices and soon everyone was talking about Eldridge Cleaver s soul on ice. Brown did not Complete his second Book children of Ham for More than 10 years. Poorly organized and edited the Story of abandoned teen agers living in an abandoned Harlem building showed or. Brown cannot write at All according to a review in the times. Manchild " says Rinzler was a Tough act to  it was an act Brown never really tried to follow. Although he has continued to lecture teach and write he is finishing a Book on heroin s Impact on Harlem his greatest creation is Claude Brown. Equally comfortable speaking at a congressional hearing in Washington or to a heroin addict on eighth Avenue Brown is proof to manchild 1985, of the Man the child can become. Unlike Many Harle mites who made it he still spends a Tot of time in Harlem. Although he has an apartment in Newark a legacy of his Rutgers Days i sleep in Newark and live in new York Brown says. My family is Here my lawyer is Here my friends Are Here my Church is Here. My life is  Claude Brown is an inspiration and a role Model for a whole lot of people says the Rev. William James. A minister who befriended Brown and sent him to College. They say if he could do it i could do it too " Here is a person who was just As bad As we were or badder and he ended up writing a Book says John Wood a 30-year-old former gang member and school dropout now preparing for the Seminary. What he s saying with his life is look i m Claude Brown " says Calvin Presley a boyhood Friend of Brown s who also went straight. " i grew up Here. You Don t have to do drugs or Rob people to have excitement i feel i be put meaning in my life. You can do the same and you la live a lot longer " Page 14 the stars and stripes the stars and stripes Page 15