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Clarence Adams took his cue from Malcolm X when he decided in 1953 that the Mason-Dixon Line begins at the Canadian border.
It was a line Adams refused to cross when a cease-fire agreement ended the Korean War. After almost three years in a prisoner of war camp, Adams, along with 20 other U.S. soldiers, risked the label of turncoat by choosing to live in China.
Adams, a Memphian, felt he had little to return to after the war. The city he left when he enlisted in the Army was a city of whites-only water fountains, restrooms and parks and limited job opportunities. Stationed in Fort Dix, N.J., during training, he saw little difference in racial attitudes in the North.
When I thought of my life as a young black man, I had great difficulty in seeing what democracy and freedom had done for me, Adams writes in the new book An American Dream. Its subtitle tells part of the story: The Life of an African American Soldier and POW Who Spent Twelve Years in Communist China.
Adams, who eventually returned to the United States, faced charges before the House Un-American Activities Committee. He died in 1999, but left behind nine hours of tapes, notes and an unfinished memoir used by his daughter, Della Adams, and retired history professor Lewis H. Carlson to complete the 150-page book.
Della Adams, 48, geographical information system program manager for the city of Memphis, began her life in
China, where her father had married a Chinese woman. In China, Clarence Adams was allowed to choose the path he wanted to follow. He chose life as a student, studying Chinese language and political economy and working for the Foreign Languages Press, a publishing house.
The book, published by the University of Massachusetts Press, is written in first person with Adams telling his own story, a chronological account that begins with his childhood in Memphis. We wanted to make sure it was in his own voice, says Della Adams, who says she was growing closer and closer to her father through long conversations often over a bottle of Old Grand Dad before he died at age 79.
Always an outsider
Adams felt like an outsider from childhood. His mother, Gladys Toosie...