North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo. - book reviews

Harvard University neuroscience professor, S. Allen Counter, who also serves as director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, has devoted considerable energy to gaining adequate recognition for Black explorer Matthew Henson, whose contributions to the North Pole expedition of Cmdr. Robert E. Peary are often overlooked.

Counter, a member of the Explorers Club, has been fascinated by stories of Henson's Arctic exploits since childhood. So, in 1986, when he heard rumors of mixed-race Eskimos--possibly the offspring of Henson and Peary--living in Greenland. He was compelled to venture to the Arctic Circle to investigate.

There, in a small settlement, he found Anaukaq Henson and Kali Peary, the two Amer-Eskimo sons of the explorers, born only days apart in 1906.

The story of how Counter located the two elderly men and brought them to the U.S. to see the land of their fathers and meet their American relatives is the story he tells in North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo (University of Massachusetts Press, $24.95).

It is a story of many contemporary and historical discoveries, and includes the history of Henson and Peary's collaboration as explorers and the long-standing controversy over their claim to have been the first people to reach the North Pole.

The Alchemy of Race and Rights: Diary of a Law Professor (Harvard University Press, $24.95), autobiographical essay in which the author, a lawyer and professor of commercial law at the University of Wisconsin, sets out her views on popular culture and current events, by Patricia J. Williams.

The Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka Reader (Thunder's Mouth Press, $24.95), collection of drama, poetry, speeches and essays that reflect the changing attitudes and ideologies of one of the most widely read and prolific authors to come out of the Black power movement of the 1960s, by Amiri Baraka, edited by William J. Harris.

Healing Health and Transformation: New Frontiers in Medicine (Lavonne Press, $19.95), an examination of contemporary health issues, including tips on dieting, nutrition and exercise, with an eye toward bridging the gap between holistic health and conventional medicine, by Elaine R. Ferguson, M.D.

A Call To Assembly: The Autobiography of a Musical Storyteller (Viking, $22.95), memoirs of Yale-trained French horn player Willie Ruff, who has played with such jazz greats as Duke Ellington, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis.