His father was under F.B.I. surveillance. The family was never the same.
Toward the end of World War II, when he was on his way to Okinawa, Japan, in command of an all-black unit, Elliott Maraniss penned a long, heartfelt letter to his newborn son explaining why he would be away for so long. "For more than 200 years now, the American people have been fighting for liberty every time it was threatened,” he wrote. “They have been ever-hopeful and ever-striving for a free land of free citizens in
