a native of new york city, raphael moved west after graduating high school. he holds ba and mat degrees from reed college and an ma from the university of california at berkeley. he spent the summer of 1962 in north carolina registering black voters and integrating public facilities and the summer of 1964 with the student nonviolent coordinating committee's "freedom summer" in mississippi. his work in the "movement" of the sixties influenced his grassroots journalistic style and his bottom-up telling of history.