A Cry From the Silent

About the Book

A Cry from the Silent explores race relations in the United States through the eyes of the author, who was raised in the segregated and Jim Crow South. Edra Jones Chandler lived on the south side of town in Fort Worth, Texas, known as Cow Town, due to its cattle drive. The nineteenth of June was always a grand celebration in Fort Worth for Negroes because that was the only day they could go to the major city park. Juneteenth, a Black holiday, was the day Texas learned slavery had ended. She thought her life was normal until she was old enough to understand what the rules meant – the ones that applied to staying in your place as a Negro and in separate hospital rooms, movies, and public parks. Later, the author would go to Pennsylvania and New Jersey for school, earning a master’s degree in special education from Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey) and studying at majority white institutions for the first time. Join Edra on her journey from a childhood marked by lawful segregation and discrimination to an adult life where the laws have changed, but racial tensions persist.

About the Author

Edra Jones Chandler, a native of Fort Worth, Texas, is the eldest of four children. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English and sociology from Huston-Tillotson College in Austin, Texas and a master’s degree in special education from Trenton State College, (now The College of New Jersey) in Ewing Township, New Jersey. She lives in Collingswood, New Jersey with her husband of more than fifty years, Caesar Chandler.