One Black Man: Growing Up - For John

ONE BLACK MAN: Growing Up - For John is an unflinching, deeply personal, and often surprisingly humorous memoir about race, friendship, identity, privilege, and the complicated experience of growing up Black in America.

Written as a series of letters to his long-deceased white best friend, Chad Church revisits more than fifty years of memories, beginning with childhood adventures and neighborhood friendships and continuing through adolescence, adulthood, travel, relationships, loss, and self-discovery. What emerges is an intimate portrait of a life shaped by both the privileges he encountered and the prejudice he endured.

Set against the changing racial landscape of New England during the 1970s and 1980s, Church reflects on white flight, racial tensions, and the realities of navigating predominantly white communities while coming to understand what it means to be a Black man in America. His recollections are candid and sometimes painful, but they are also filled with humor, vulnerability, affection, and the lessons of a life lived fully.

From childhood innocence and youthful indiscretions to the devastating loss of his best friend, Church transforms personal memories into a larger reflection on race, belonging, masculinity, friendship, and the experiences that shape us. His journey eventually carries him beyond the United States to Europe, Central America, and South America, where new perspectives deepen his understanding of himself and the world around him.

ONE BLACK MAN is ultimately a story about endurance, self-awareness, and the promise to live boldly-not only for oneself, but for a friend whose life ended too soon. Honest, heartfelt, and irreverent in equal measure, it invites readers to laugh, reflect, question their assumptions, and consider what it truly means to live with passion, pride, and purpose.