Born in 1945, David Goldberg was educated at Christian Brothers College in Cork, Trinity College and the King's Inns, Dublin. His love of painting was often at war with his profession as a barrister and he practiced both at different stages of his life. While he grew up in Cork, and lived mostly thereafter in Dublin, he travelled extensively in Europe and the USA and later in South Africa. This book - a memoir and analysis of his parents - explores the inner workings of a man's life and how these affect the outer aspect of the man.

For many African Americans, getting a public sector job has historically been one of the few paths to the financial stability of the middle class, and in New York City, few such jobs were as sought-after as positions in the fire department (FDNY). For over a century, generations of Black New Yorkers have fought to gain access to and equal opportunity within the FDNY. Tracing this struggle for jobs and justice from 1898 to the present, David Goldberg details the ways each generation of firefighters confronted overt and institutionalized racism. An important chapter in the histories of both Black social movements and independent workplace organizing, this book demonstrates how Black firefighters in New York helped to create affirmative action from the "bottom up," while simultaneously revealing how white resistance to these efforts shaped white working-class conservatism and myths of American meritocracy.
Full of colorful characters and rousing stories drawn from oral histories, discrimination suits, and the archives of the Vulcan Society (the fraternal society of Black firefighters in New York), this book sheds new light on the impact of Black firefighters in the fight for civil rights.