Jason L. Riley of the Wall Street Journal has an interesting interview with Walter Williams entitled “The State Against Blacks.” The title references a book written by Mr. Williams in 1984, but the interview is about Mr. Williams and his life:

‘Sometimes I sarcastically, perhaps cynically, say that I’m glad that I received virtually all of my education before it became fashionable for white people to like black people,” writes Walter Williams in his new autobiography, “Up from the Projects.” “By that I mean that I encountered back then a more honest assessment of my strengths and weaknesses. Professors didn’t hesitate to criticize me—sometimes to the point of saying, ‘That’s nonsense.’”

Mr. Williams, an economist at George Mason University, is contrasting being black and poor in the 1940s and ’50s with today’s experience. It’s a theme that permeates his short, bracing volume of reminiscence …

Mr. Williams is a real hero of freedom, a good economist and an entertaining man.