Racehoss

Big Emma's Boy

By: Carol Sample - afterword, David R. Dow - foreword, Albert Race Sample

Narrated by: Mirron Willis

Length: 14 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's Summary

“A timeless classic” (San Antonio Express-News), reissued with a new foreword, afterword, and 10 percent more material about a Black man who spent 17 years on a brutal Texas prison plantation and underwent a remarkable transformation. First published in 1984, Racehoss: Big Emma’s Boy is Albert Race Sample’s “unforgettable” (The Dallas Morning News) tale of resilience, revelation, and redemption. 

Born in 1930, the mixed-race son of a hard-drinking Black prostitute and a White cotton broker, Sample was raised in the Jim Crow South by an abusive mother who refused to let her son - who could pass for White - call her Mama. He watched for the police while she worked, whether as a prostitute, bootlegger, or running the best dice game in town. He loved his mother deeply but could no longer take her abuse and ran away from home at the age of 12. 

In his early 20s, Sample was arrested for burglary, robbery, and robbery by assault, and was sentenced to nearly 20 years in the Texas prison system in the 1950s and '60s. His light complexion made him stand out in the all-Black prison plantation known as the “burnin’ hell”, where he and over 400 prisoners picked cotton and worked the land while White shotgun-carrying guards followed on horseback. 

Sample earned the moniker “Racehoss” for his ability to hoe cotton faster than anyone else in his squad. A profound spiritual awakening in solitary confinement was a decisive moment for him, and he became determined to turn his life around. When he was finally released in 1972, he did just that. Though Sample was incarcerated in the 20th century, his memoir reads like it came from the 19th. 

With new stories that had been edited out of the first edition, a foreword by Texas attorney and writer David R. Dow, and an afterword by Sample’s widow, Carol, this new edition of Racehoss: Big Emma’s Boy offers a more complete picture of this extraordinary time in America’s recent past. 

©1984; 2018 Albert Race Sample; Albert Race Sample and Carol Gene Sample (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Just wow!!!

I heard the radio interview when Albert was interviewed by Diane Rehm in the 1990’s. That was amazing and the book carried it to full details. Add the narrators tones and inflections made this an awesome audio book.

P.s I believe that long haired stranger he fed (prior to parole) at the fire camp site, was either angel or someone on the parole board.

Amazing story andVoice artist

Highly recommend this book. Mirron Willis is an incredible artist who brings so much to this epic American story. Legendary.

Great re"listen"

Read this book in high school and loved it then but with the narrator, brings it more to life and very funny at times and makes you cry at others. Great book!

Glad that's over

The book was good overall however, it was very detailed when it wasn't necessary especially during his prison years. It seemed to go on and on. I sympathize with Racehoss' story and am glad he was shown the light but 14 hours (whew). Like another readers review said, I heard his Diane Rehm interview and was excited to listen but was a little disappointed.