Lorenz Bell Graham; Wrote of Black Life

Lorenz Bell Graham, a former missionary, probation officer and social worker credited with bringing realistic black characters to young people’s literature by building many of his tales around the English folk patois of African peoples, has died in West Covina.

Graham, known particularly for his “Town” series about a young black’s struggle to overcome racism as he becomes a doctor, was 87 when he died Monday of cancer, his daughter, Ruth Siegrist, said.

A one-time probation officer for Los Angeles County, Graham had lived in Claremont since 1970 when he joined the faculty of Cal Poly in Pomona.

Trip Piques Interest

Son of a Methodist minister who traveled widely throughout the country, Graham accepted a teaching-missionary assignment in Liberia while still a student at UCLA. The journey piqued Graham’s interest in things African, and he began to conceive the stories for which he became well known. His first, “How God Fix Jonah,” published in 1946, was a collection of biblical tales told in Liberian dialect.

In 1947, he published “Tales of Momolu,” an outgrowth of stories he had told to children about a small boy in an African village.

The New York Times wrote that, “The American reader will recognize Momolu as just another fellow,” a judgment that Graham sought throughout his work, once saying that “as a Negro I grew up with fears and hatred for white people and came to understanding of these destructive emotions only after being outside the United States and separated from the ‘race problem.’ ”

He returned to the United States where he received a bachelor’s degree from Virginia Union University in Richmond and became an assistant to black historian W. E. B. DuBois. He was a social worker in New York in the 1950s, and in 1957 came to Los Angeles as a deputy probation officer, retiring in 1967.

Uses Other Topics

In addition to folk tales for and about young Africans, he wrote of John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry and novelettes for which critics praised his ability to tell tales in a distinctly African way that retained the universalities that were his goal.

His “Town” series (“South Town,” “North Town,” “Whose Town?” and “Return to South Town”) was published from 1958 to 1976 and described the travails of the young black David Williams as he becomes a physician.

“As a group,” wrote critic Rudine Sims, “these books tend to celebrate the courage and determination of Afro-American families and individuals who are faced with racism, oppression or violence . . . the idea that while blacks must take responsibility for their own lives, blacks and whites can learn to coexist--that people must be judged as individuals.”

“Someone,” Graham said, “should write about the unheroic quiet ones, those who know the evils and feel the pain of injustice and discrimination but hold on to their hope and continue to struggle for a better life.”

Receives Many Honors

“South Town” received a best novel award from the Child Study Assn. of America, one of many honors Graham received throughout his life.

In 1969, Graham was a participant in Los Angeles in what was then called Negro History Week and observed at a seminar that “life isn’t a matter of black and white . . . it is more a matter of fear and hope . . . right and wrong.”

Survivors include his wife, the author Ruth Morris Graham, two sons, two daughters, 15 grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held Saturday at noon at McCarty Memorial Christian Church, 4101 W. Adams Blvd., Los Angeles.