Crown Me Capital Pool Checkers Club Author:Peggy Fleming CROWN ME! is a book of 24 black and white portraits and two pages of conversations with each man who belongs to the Capital Pool Checkers Club. The club is located at 9th and S Streets Northwest in Washington DC. The African American men have come to their club to play checkers at this address since 1985. Before then they met in various barber s... more »hops. The club serves as the location for serious competitive checkers as well as for joshing camaraderie. The men range in age from late 30's to 80's. Some men were born in DC and Baltimore, and others came to DC from the South and East to pursue education and jobs. The club has three tables set with six checkerboards in the center of the room. Oldies but goodies soul music plays, punctuated by the staccatos of the checkers as they are moved and the triumphant declarations, Put A Hat On It! or Crown Me! Cell phones ring, vending machines hum, corn pops. Adorning one wall are hundreds of snapshots of current and former members. Trophies reign high up on a shelf. Sofas and chairs line one wall, worn with use. The men sit, stand, watch and play, kibitzing. The men know one another by their handles, their checker names. The president of the club, Tal Roberts said that sometimes you know people by their nickname and don't know their real name. We had one called E. C. Taylor, and his name was E. C. We never knew what his real name was because his real name was Ecclesiastes. And there were a lot of people couldn't pronounce it. And nobody cold spell it. In this book you will meet The Shark, Chicago, The Stealer, The Razor, Boy Wonder, The Weasel, Butt Kicker, The Hawk, The Master of Disaster, among others. Capital Pool Checkers Club is an affiliate of the American Pool Checkers Association. They sponsor tournaments in many cities of the USA. The Foreword is written by Maurice Jackson. a professor of history at Georgetown University. Jackson is an authority on African American history and culture and a keen observer of life in DC.« less