Library books vs. books I owned (and thus removed from the home abode): 6 library books, 1 owned books and 0 e-books.
Plans for July 2020 include a month of teaching online Summer School at the university, prepping their lectures and grading work… Apart from that, lots of reading, jigsaw puzzles and hanging out. Temperatures are very hot outside for the most part, so it’s a pretty indoor life right now. đ
Our city has a few lakes and flooded canyons. Here is one of them on a lovely weekend morning walk the other day.
Crikey. This was one heckuva read about an amazing Black woman. It’s also an excellent nonfiction book with cool modern graphics integrated in amongst its well-written text. (I know. Lots of praise but this volume deserves every ounce of that.)
If you’re unfamiliar with Harriet Tubman, get thee to at least the Wikipedia page and read about this true American hero. (No hyperbole there.) Her life story just blew me away. đ
Harriet Tubman (1885). Photograph by Horatio Seymour Squyer. National Portrait Gallery.
So – not only is this the life story of an astonishingly brave woman, this title presents her history (or herstory) in a modern and extremely graphically-pleasing format. And — it’s well-written. As you can perhaps surmise, this was an informative and wonderful read for me, and I highly recommend it for you.
Erica Armstrong Dunbar, author.
If you’re not familiar with Tubman (and disregarded my advice in the second paragraph to go and read the Wiki page on her), you’re missing out. Tubman may have been small in stature (five feet tall) but holy cow – she had the biggest and bravest heart and used that courage to save hundreds of people from slavery.
Not only was she a leader in the historical Underground Railway system for escaped slaves, but she was also a hardcore soldier, a brilliant spy, a suffragette for the vote AND an advocate for old people. And – she had brain surgery without anesthetic. Phew. Can you see why I am amazed by this fabulous woman?
Author Erica Armstrong Dunbar, the Charles and Mary Beard professor of history at Rutgers in New Jersey, has done a great job here of relating Tubman’s life and endless achievements, all done in an energetic and graphically pleasing presentation which made this a pure pleasure to read.
It’s written in a conversational tone (despite Armstrong Dunbar’s academic status), but this tone comes across as friendly and informative, similar to watching an approachable historical documentary onscreen but while retaining the sheen of academic rigor to the text.
Credit: Toledo Public Library.
A powerful and mesmerizing read about one of the most impressive historical figures I have ever come across. I’m astonished that Tubman is not more well known for her life and times – she should be. This will be definitely be one of the top reads for 2020. Amazing.
(Curiously – Tubman was scheduled to be honored on the design of the $20 dollar bill [to replace racist President Andrew Jackson] but true to form, the Orange Goblin has put the kibosh on that for now. See this CNN article for the (disgusting) details. Sigh.)
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You’re still here? Shouldn’t you be at the library checking this book out? Or buying it online? Why – yes. You should. đ
With the world in this state of flux (for all of the many different reasons), I’m really interested in learning more about the history and the lives of the many people who call the U.S. “home”.
At the same time, I’m also committed to reading more BIPOC authors and topics, so toddled off to the library to see what I could track down on the shelves.
“Driving While Black” covers some of the history of American civil rights through the lens of automobiles and their overlap with social history. This was a fascinating read.
As the cover copy states, this book “reveals how the car – the ultimate symbol of independence and possibility – has always held particular importance for African Americans, allowing [B]lack families to evade the many dangers presented by an entrenched racist society and to enjoy, in some measure, the freedom of the open road.â
And although a lot of this history may not have been unfamiliar to me, the manner of how these two topics were combined and presented was eye-opening for me, as a white reader. Through careful documented research, Sorin puts together a thorough timeline of the parallels between the introduction (and subsequent widespread adoption) of the car and the increasing social roles of Black people in America:
Travel for Negroes inside the borders of the United States can become an experience so fraught with humiliation and unpleasantness that most colored people simply never think of a vacation in the same terms as the rest of America.
The Saturday Review, 1950
Geographer Karl Raitz has described the American roadside as a public space open for everyone, but the roadside itself only represented private interests.
This presented a dilemma for Black travelers: sure, you can buy a car (if you can afford it); sure, you can drive your car along the roads for great distances throughout the U.S., BUT if you want to actually stop at any point along your journey, these “private interests” (the hotels, restaurants, rest-stops etc.) are not always going to be welcoming for you and your family.
So, the introduction of the car to Black consumer symbolized freedom, just as it did for other car owners, but only the freedom of driving along the actual macadam. If you, as a Black driver, became hungry or tired and wanted to stop along the way, that’s a whole other kettle of fish. Do you see the dilemma now?
Sorin goes into well-documented depth on this using oral and written histories to bring you, as the reader, into this problematic world. As the twentieth century progressed, American life slowly and incrementally improved for Black families but it was geographically uneven and in irregular fits and starts. Sorin’s decision to intertwine consumer history of the car industry and the social history of Black America made this a riveting read which made me shake my head as the stupidity of racism.
Throughout the twentieth century, America was a confusing mix of integrated and non-integrated places which made traveling by car hazardous for Black drivers without significant preparation.
What were your options for help if you had a flat tire by the side of the road on a highway? Where would your family sleep at night? Have you packed enough food and drink for the non-stop journey (obviously you can’t stop at any old restaurant along the way)? Would your life be safe if you were driving in this particular community after sunset? (There were more than 150 “sundown towns” across the U.S.). And don’t even think about what your choices were if one of your party became sick and needed medical care…)
It is insane that the Land of the Free allowed these horrible constraints on some of its very own citizens. How traumatic for these early Black travelers just to drive to see other family members!
“At the Time of the Louisville Flood” – 1937 photograph by Margaret Bourke-White. (Getty Images.)
You’ve probably heard of the Green Book (link to book review), one of several travel guides for Black drivers on where to go, where to eat and where to stay, but this was just one of several publications that were popular at the time. (Huh. Didn’t know that but it makes sense that Victor Green wasn’t the only one to see the need.)
As cultural mores slowly started to shift and the white-owned travel business saw that more money could be made by catering to Black business, more hotels and restaurants gradually started to cater to these new customers. The Civl Rights Act of 1964 further accelerated this program (although it was achingly slow in parts of the South), but people were stubborn to change and adapt.
The problem of [B]lack business is not the absence of [B]lack support, but the absence of white support.
John H. Johnson, owner, Ebony magazine, 1971.
The Post-Racial Negro Green Book by Jan Miles (2017).
And although life has improved for Black Americans in the 21st century, it’s still got a ways to go. (Witness: police brutality et al.)
In 2017, author Jan Miles published “The Post-Racial Negro Green Book“, which is her take on the historical travel guide but this one is a 2013-2016 state-by-state collection of police brutality, racial profiling and everyday racist behavior by businesses and private citizens. Yikes.
Suffice to say that this was a powerful read for me. It wasn’t perfect in terms of the writing (quite a bit of repetition which could have been caught by a sharp-eyed editor), but the content more than made up for that.
Week 4: (Nov. 18 to 22) â Nonfiction Favorites (Leann @ Shelf Aware):Weâve talked about how you pick nonfiction books in previous years, but this week Iâm excited to talk about what makes a book youâve read one of your favorites. Is the topic pretty much all that matters? Are there particular ways a story can be told or particular writing styles that you love? Do you look for a light, humorous approach or do you prefer a more serious tone? Let us know what qualities make you add a nonfiction book to your list of favorites.
For me to select a nonfiction book to read, I think itâs mostly determined by the topic, first of all. If I am remotely curious about whatever the subject of the book may be, then you can probably bet that Iâll take a second closer look at the volume.
(And you know â this can happen even if Iâm not that taken by the subject, but then itâs totally dependent on how the back-cover blurb + the first page (+ any notable reviews) read. If one (or more) or a combination of all those hit the target and still sound interesting (and well-written), then Iâll be even more interested than otherwise. And sometimes it’s none of those things! đ )
But then again, let me add this caveat that sometimes itâs a topic that I didnât know that I was curious about and yet I STILL finish a book on it. For example, who would have thought that one of the most interesting books that comes to mind from the last few years was one that examines the phenomenon of the Baby Beanie craze that took over the country a few years back?
I didnât collect Baby Beanies; didnât own any Beanie Babies; hadnât even thought about Beanie Babies for YEARS and yet, heard about this title, picked it up and found it to be fascinating. (And Iâm still thinking about it years later!)
Iâm not even sure how I tracked down this title in the first place, but I would bet that I read about it on someone elseâs blog and then found it at the library. But who would know that this title even existed without those? I wouldnât have.
So perhaps itâs a combination of all those factors listed earlier (the blurb + the first page + notable reviews + non-prof review of someone I trust re: reading)?
If anyone had ever asked me if I would be interested in learning the details and history of the Beanie Babies, my hand would not have been raised to say yes, and yet, it was actually one of my most intriguing and memorable reads that I can remember in recent memory. Go figure.
An amazingly well-written and well-organized read about the worldwide slave trade history and the efforts of a small group of men to end slavery in the British Empire (with ripples that crossed the globe afterwards), this was perhaps part of the catalyst that brought to my mind my ongoing interest in the African-American experience.
(I’m really interested in the experiences of other disenfranchised groups, so I’ll be learning more about them at some point.This just happened to be first.)
A finalist for the 2005 National Book Award in NonFiction, this title rather opened the door and pulled me in to educate me on the history of the slave trade, which, in turn, led me to become very interested in race, diversity, bias and the other buzzwords flowing across campuses right now.
Which then led me on to more recent history such as the Civil Rights Movement, desegregation/resegregation, the Great Migration, and right on up until we reach the various discussions about race and POC topics that make up part of todayâs conversation.
(I would also say that another influence on this diversity interest would be the current U.S. administration and its disdain for anyone whoâs not a rich white man. But that could be a whole other conversation, couldnât it?)
In fact, I became so interested in this subject that it was one of the big reasons that I traveled to Memphis last Spring to learn more about the Civil Rights Movement there, to visit the Lorraine Motel and the National Civil Rights Museum, and to walk down Beale Street. (Beale Street is a real-life place but is also the title of a book: If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin (pub. 1974), plus it’s been released as a remake as a movie…)
(Another reason for the Memphis visit was to visit Graceland and other Elvis-related places. Interestingly, Elvisâ life and music were very influenced by the African-American experience, but again, thatâs a whole other rabbit holeâŚ)
Back to the topic at hand: which other qualities do I look for in a good NF read? Well, I need to find the topic appealing in some way. Iâm also learning that Iâd like it to be really well-written, well-organized, quite academic in how its research is cited and with a long bibliography at the end. (More books! Give me more!)
And if you could also throw in an occasional mention of some dry sense of humor â witty, clever without being condescending â then Iâll definitely read it.
And — I usually try to find a topic that’s pretty different from whatever I’ve just been reading about in my previous NF read, just to keep things interesting (unless I’m on a kick on one area in particular, in which case I might read more of the same).
(I’m very consistent in being inconsistent. đ )
So â what about you? Let me know what you think. I am having a lot of fun visiting lots of other similar-minded peopleâs blogs!
If youâre curious what other slightly-random topic reads Iâve read about, you might like to check the following reviews:
A Kim Jong Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, his Star Actress and a Young Dictator’s Rise to Power â Paul Fischer
With Week 1 of Nonfiction November now completed, weâre on to Week 2. The task: to pair up a NF title with a fiction title.
Wanting to come up with choices that perhaps may be off the beaten path a bit, this was actually a little more challenging than I had first realized, but putting my Thinking Cap on, I came up with the following:
The 1936 edition of the Negro Motoristâs Green Book (the actual book itself, not the movie based on it) and Native Son, the 1940 novel written by Richard Wright.
The obvious connection between the two titles is that they are by (and about) persons of African descent who live in North America, but whatâs less obvious is that they were both written within four years of each other and when one reads these as a package or sequentially, they add depth to each other, different though they may be. In my mind, itâs similar to the difference between watching something on normal TV and then watching it again in high definition. (Or it could even be compared to an experience in virtual reality (VR) if youâd like to move it to an even more digital plain.) Reading the two of them just adds so much more detail and depth to what would otherwise be a fairly superficial literary experience.
Letâs look a little moreâŚ
Wrightâs Native Son has a narrative arc that follows a journey (of several types) undertaken by protagonist Bigger Thomas, born and living on the South Side of Chicago and whose journey is both literal (the storyâs main catalyst is linked with his job as a chauffeur) and psychological (in terms of how the action impacts Bigger and his entire life, as well as that of the people who surround him).
The plot also clearly demonstrates the dichotomy between the interior (i.e. Biggerâs life and thoughts) and how they are necessarily impacted by the exterior (cultural, judicial, social/economic)âŚ
But even if this is all sounds too academically intimidating for you, please donât be put off by the literary criticism side of things: I have no qualms recommending Native Son for just an excellently good read. (This novel is a rollicking experience to leave you with lots of thoughts, even if you donât notice or see these same aspects.I understand that not everyone is lit crit nerd! :-} )
As a complementary read to this powerful title, I suggest the Negro Motoristâs Green Book (1936) which is a NF title* published as a guide book for African-American car drivers traveling throughout the U.S. at a time when it was dangerous and challenging for travelers such as themselves to find somewhere safe to eat, drink and stay when they were on the road.
So, allow me to set the stage for both of these reads.
Historically speaking, the later 1930s and early 1940s marked the middle-to -the-end of World War II and were a time of radical change for America in many ways. American soldiers (of all races) were returning home after military service armed with new job skills and experiences which would enable them to earn their entrance to the middle class, socio-economically speaking â a fact that particularly impacted African-Americans upon their return stateside.
For many African-Americans, their military service years had given them experiences abroad where they were given training and responsibilities far different than their lives had allowed prior to the battles. For the first time, quite a few African-Americans had been placed in battalions and given the same job duties (with similar levels of respect) as their white brothers-in-arms were given.
War impacted every soldier, regardless of what color his skin was, and so, when these servicemen (and they were mostly men, in terms of enlisted soldiers) returned home at the end of their military commitments, they had just survived life-changing experiences only to be expected to re-enter a Jim-Crow era of laws and cultural mores that had remained untouched from before they had left to fight abroad. Soldiers had just risked their lives for a country that now anticipated them to (re-)fit quietly back into the same old molds as before. Of course there were problems for all involved.
You canât give a prisoner a taste of freedom and respect, and then expect them to squeeze back into their old cells without issue, and yet this was the case with these returning GIs. (If you’re interested in more details about African-American soldiers serving in the armed forces, you might try The Harlem Hellfighters by Max Brooks, a 2014 graphic novel about an all-black regiment who served in WWI. This link takes you to Goodreads since I don’t have a personal review for this (regrettably).)
So, despite the Negro Motorist travel guide being mentioned as published in 1936, it was actually updated and published every year between 1936 and 1966, so there would have been a new edition published in the same year as Native Son â the country had not changed that much for the average African-American, despite the ongoing war, and there would still have been the related Jim-Crow concerns for those with cars who travelled across the nation. Where to eat? Where to stay? How to stay alive when the sun went down to drive tomorrow?
So, to me, Native Son pairs well with the Green Book since it would have been a guidebook with which Bigger would have been familiar, particularly since his job was as a chauffeur, at least for a while. It also is a clear demonstration of some of the restraints and rules to which these returning soldiers would have had to bend, rules which impacted every aspect of the life of an African-American at that time.
When you read Biggerâs story and then fit it into the national and cultural landscape of the Green Book and of America at that time, itâs no wonder that the novel ends as it does. How could it have any other ending without turning it into a fantasy tale?
If your interest is at all piqued by this post, I highly recommend you take a delve into the history of African-Americans (and other POC/disenfranchised groups) in the U.S. Itâs a fascinating rabbit hole with repercussions still echoing in the world of today.
For the other nonfiction November posts, check out these:
Life has been a bit busy lately, so in order to get caught up a bit, I thought Iâd do a quick round-up of what Iâve been reading lately. Please donât think that just because these titles donât get their very own blog post, these titles are not that great. They are awesome, but in the interests of time and resources, I thought a brief mention would be better than no mention.
Back in September, I finished up a powerful read of âWarriors Donât Cryâ, a recounting of when Arkansas was forced to desegregate its Little Rock Central High School, much to the dismay of a lot of people. There were supporters, naturally, but this is from the viewpoint of one of the young high school students who took courage to new levels when she decided to stick with the desegregation process, scary though it was.
Reading just how badly people behaved during this time period was heart-breaking and stressful. There was a band of six high school students, all African-American, who were selected to be the pioneers in integrating their school, and once I had read about how just plain horrible some of the people (community adults, teachers and students) were to these brave students, my heart went out to them.
Itâs an amazing read that takes you into the very heart of a reluctant Arkansas cityâs forced 1957 racial integration of one of its largest high schools, and it shocked me to learn how mean and threatening people were towards people of African descent (and those who supported them).
The author, Melba Padillo Beals, was a fifteen-year-old student at the time, and her recounting of this terrifying time when she was trying to get her education is shocking. (At least it was to me. I knew things were tough for African-Americans during this time during America, but this shows to what levels the opposition stooped to do â against high school kids!)
Shameful and rather difficult to read, but not half as difficult as it must have been to actually live in those times. A tough but necessary read, especially in the atmosphere of today where it seems as though America is going backwards instead of forwards.
(Linked with this topic is also a short book of essays Iâm reading that argues that America is moving towards resegregation⌠More to come.)
Wanting to read more about racism, I picked up “Kaffir Boy “by Mark Mathabone (1986), a title thatâs been on the TBR pile for quite some time, this one about South Africaâs time of apartheid and how one young black man struggles to escape. This was another toughie to read. It doesnât gloss over the hardship of life for black Africans who have to live under apartheid, and once youâve read these descriptions of living in a black township at that time, you realize that this kidâs escape to a better life was actually even more of an achievement. Itâs sickening that the world allowed this government to continue with apartheid for as long as it didâŚ
And then, since I rather needed something a little more cheerful to read, I did a quick reread of a collection of Atlantic articles by David Grann called “The Devil and Sherlock Holmes.” (See review of an earlier read here.)
Another really enjoyable and well-written read about how strange people can be across the world sometimes. đ
Dr. Cornel West visited our campus last week as part of the African-American History Month, and wow. He was a fantastic orator. You can tell that he has experience as a spoken word performer and you can tell that he is probably one of the smartest people you’ll ever hear from. (Huge vocabulary!) It was great.
Dr. Westâs talk was along the lines of how African-American lives have been changed (or not) during the Obama administration and I had been expecting to hear how great President Obama has been and all that jazz. Instead, we heard a fairly diluted message of support for him, and a lot about how itâs much more important to be the best person you can be, regardless of color. Great message. However, Dr. West was also very astute in his biting commentary about how racism still exists for African-Americans in the U.S. and he particularly focused on the “Black Lives Matter” campaign. It really got me to thinking and linked nicely back to Ta Ne-Hisi Coates’ book, Between The World and Me. (See my review here.)
(I had expected the lecture hall to be as packed as it was with Black Violin , but instead (and rather disappointedly), it was only two-thirds full and mostly with older white people. I was saddened because Dr. West was rather a coup for our university to secure. Heâs an important intellectual activist and his messages crosses boundaries of all kinds. They missed out is all I can say.)
So â to the talk. Instead of focusing on President Obamaâs eight years in office, Dr. West revolved his talk on the problem of systemic racism in the U.S. and linked that with four questions from the African-American writer, W. E. B. Du Bois:
How shall Integrity face Oppression?
What shall Honesty do in the face of Deception?
What shall Decency do in the face of Insult?
What shall Virtue do to meet Brute Force?
(Du Bois had some other questions as well, but these were the four that Dr. West chose to focus on for his talk.)
It was a powerful talk. Dr. West is a fiery and passionate speaker and covered a wide swath of issues. He addressed some uncomfortable realities (at least for me, as a privileged white person) and the advice that he gave to address these four questions in an honorable and powerful way was dead on.
It was really a good lecture, and if you should ever get a chance to hear Dr. West, then please go. It was a thought-provoking and energizing talk from one of the leading activists and philosophers in the U.S. Highly recommended.
(Iâm also going to look for some of Du Boisâ writing at a later date. It looks v interesting to me.)
âUnlike Chauncey Street, Fulton Street on this summer Saturday night was a swirling spectrum of neon signs, movie marquees, bright-lit store windows and sweeping yellow streamers of light from the carsâŚâ
“Brown Girl, Brownstones” is a title that has been on my shelf of Viragoes for years (and that’s not hyperbole there), and as part of this monthâs African-American History Month celebration, I picked it up. (Iâd also just finished a collection of short stories by Marshall last week and Iâd loved that read.)
Paule Marshall.
And this read was the same level of literary excellence that Iâd been hoping for after that short story collection. Marshall continues with her high level of wordsmithing here in this bildungsroman of a young immigrant child whose family are first-generation arrivals from Barbados living in early 20th century NYC. Historically speaking, after having dealt (and lived) with years of servitude, there was a wave of Barbadians (or Bajans as theyâre called in this novel) who immigrated to New York hoping for a better life. New York was, at that times, called the âCity of the Almighty Dollarâ among this group, and all who arrived there came with dreams of big money and big success. They were literate, ambitious, and business-minded, and considered themselves as separate from the African-American population for the most part. They were Bajans.
So â to the story itself. As mentioned, itâs a coming of age novel set in Brooklyn in this immigrant neighborhood. The protagonist is Selina Boyce, a girl of twelve when the novel begins and whose parents are complete opposites of each other. The father is a dream-large layabout who talks big without following through on the action whilst her mother (always referred to as âtheâ mother to emphasize the distance between them) is a reality-based ambitious hard worker who has to provide the money for the bread and butter and the board for the family. Selina grudgingly admires her mother, but her father she views as âChrist-likeâ as the mother points out in one paragraph. Selina admires her father enough to side with him in the many family arguments that arise, and so she often defends her fatherâs ways in opposition of her mother who is faced with paying for the daily bread and board.
Over the years, Selina is smart in school and grows up with dreams of being a dancer. She also falls in love with a man who is older and who is, incidentally, very like her father in that he has half-baked dreams of being a successful artist but doesnât have the wherewithal to make that actually happen. So, young Selina is torn in terms of who she wants to be: should she model herself after her father and his pie-in-the-sky ways, or after her mother who is more down-to-earth and realistic?
Itâs this dichotomy which runs its thread through this novel. Selina can see that her father is not going to achieve much, but still â she admires his dreams of freedom and success and strongly identifies with him. Her mother, on the other hand — Selina canât ignore her skills and her own dreams of being a successful independent business owner. And so Selina has to learn to decide her own future â does she have to choose one parent over another or is there another way?
This was written entirely in dialect which made it a slow read at first, but once I got the hang of it, I could hear it in my head and really enjoyed the novel. Marshall is a superb writer, and this was a good read for Black History Month.
Despite the clunky title, this is a relatively fast read about a fascinating subject that has been neglected in my world of knowledge so far: the abolition of slavery from the British Empire during the last eighteenth century and onwards.
In 1787, a group of twelve men met one evening in a printerâs shop in London wanting to end slavery in the British Empire. As the author notes, the size of this goal would be comparable (for us) as wanting to get rid of cars across the world. It was a huge endeavor, and one that would not come that easy or without a big fight. This small group of committed activists would take on Parliament, the upper class, the military, the church â in fact almost every organized group at that time was most likely involved in slavery projects (and yes, even the Church of England had some dealings in the trade).
So â how did this proceed? It took years of dedicated effort, miles of horse-riding to do effective outreach to cities and towns across the nation at a time when transportation was slow and expensive, and a public relations campaign that influenced almost every other social justice campaign since then.
Reading the non-fiction portrayal of the events that occurred, I found it to be really exciting and involving in the whole process: the secret meetings of the Quakers (and others) who supported the neophyte cause, the writing of the anti-slavery pamphlets, the development of political supporters, and even the Sugar protest whereby more then 300,000 Britons refused to eat (or buy) sugar as it was a slave-supportive product. I just canât imagine people nowadays doing something similar. (Iâd like to think I was wrong, but after years with public health, I am not entirely convinced. Perhaps the early HIV/AIDS activists were closest in the late 80âs and early 90âs. Yes, I know HIV/AIDS was around earlier than that.)
This small group of men (and later on, women) were the people who first effectively used the tools of community relations today: wall posters and pamphlets to mass mailings, boycotts and antislavery badges (designed by Josiah Wedgewood and perhaps the equivalent of lapel ribbons for today.) Hochschild is passionate about
this subject and it is easy to catch that enthusiasm when you read this and learn (or get reminded) of the horrors of traveling in a slave ship in the Middle Passage of the slavery triangle between England, the West Indies, and Southern US, and I learned a lot about it.
The drawing of the layout of the slave ship was one of the first ever diagrams used to mold public opinion, and did much to help the cause. The activists learned that âshow, not tellâ was the most effective teaching tool, and so speakers carried around some of the trappings of slavery: the leg irons, the leg traps, the whips⌠Itâs hard to deny slavery when you saw those, I would think.
One thing I was amazed at was the very low number of people in the British Isles who could vote at that time. I was familiar with the fact that women had not been allowed to vote for a significant period of time, but at this time in the eighteenth century, only about 5% of all the population of England, Scotland and Wales could vote with the majority of those voters being upper class and peers of the realm. The petitions that the anti-slavery team put together going house-to-house in all kinds of neighborhoods and asking people who perhaps had never been asked for their opinions before â this was a
huge catalyst to involving the underclasses in the political process. No one had ever asked for their opinions before, and so this was a game-changer that led to ripples for the next century and beyond.
Really, this abolition movement changed the world in many ways: it led to the US abolitionists learning how to work an effective campaign, the independence of several Caribbean islands from European countries, new and different links with African countries⌠After some time, it also helped to bring public opinion to sway on the awfully dangerous working conditions for child (and adult) laborers in the mines close to home on British soil and other changes. It also clearly shows that emancipation wasnât just a âgiftâ from the âWhite Guysâ, but also the result of uprisings by the slaves themselves at the cost of many lost lives.
Really, I found this to be a fascinating book on many levels. The author is a co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, and is a well published writer and journalist. He definitely did his homework on this one. This was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award in Non-Fiction.
Borrowed on ILL from Lubbock Library. Hooray for Texas libraries.
Wanting to read more about racism, I picked up “Kaffir Boy “by Mark Mathabone (1986), a title thatâs been on the TBR pile for quite some time, this one about South Africaâs time of apartheid and how one young black man struggles to escape. This was another toughie to read. It doesnât gloss over the hardship of life for black Africans who have to live under apartheid, and once youâve read these descriptions of living in a black township at that time, you realize that this kidâs escape to a better life was actually even more of an achievement. Itâs sickening that the world allowed this government to continue with apartheid for as long as it didâŚ
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