The Last Great American Hobo
This deeply affecting essay in pictures and words focuses on the last hurrah of Blackie, who was 76 years old in 1989 when his hobo camp on California's Sacramento River, in the city of West Sacramento, was dismantled by the police. The authors' special sensitivity to the plight of the dispossessed informs this wrenching document, as previously witnessed in their Pulitzer Prize-winning And Their Children After Them , which was about Alabama sharecroppers. Blackie--whose mien struck Maharidge as a combination of New England sea captain and a leprechaun--took to the road in 1928. And except for a few intervals as a "citizen" (hobo lingo for comformists), he has lived on the hobo circuit, generally encountering at least tolerance. But the situation changed in the 1980s when, as the number of homeless people grew, hobos became pariahs to be forced out of town, much like those who lived in Blackie's camp. But Blackie does not consider himself homeless; he made his choice, he says, and wants not sympathy but only to be let be. His camp is gone now, though, and Blackie has not been heard from since.Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.