By Kevin Seabrooke
Haygood’s vivid, engaging prose brings to life the experiences of those he knew growing up in Columbus, Ohio, who served in Vietnam and the struggle of those who returned. He follows not just soldiers, but doctors and nurses, artists and journalists, as well as others fighting to overcome the powerful divide still existing between the races and the chaotic tide of change during the turbulent 1960s and 70s. Amid an era of echoing with the voices of Martin Luther King Jr., Marvin Gaye, and Berry Gordy, readers will meet, among others, Air Force pilot Fred Cherry, the first Black officer captured by the North Vietnamese and Dr. Elbert Nelson, who went to Vietnam after watching the Watts riots in L.A. on TV.
An award-winning author and journalist for the Washington Post and Boston Globe, Haygood has traveled the world, covered Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa and was once kidnapped by rebels in Somalia.
The War Within a War: The Black Struggle in Vietnam and at Home (Wil Haygood, Knopf, New York, NY, 384 pp., Feb. 10, 2026 $35 HC)
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