Book Review: The Warmth of Other Suns

 
 
It was vast. It was leaderless. It was an overground railroad.

Stars: 5/5

Pulitzer Prize winning author, Isabel Wilkerson, has penned a superb national bestseller on The Great Migration, the flight of African-Americans out of the Jim Crow South to the North where the racial temperament was less caustic. The Warmth of Other Suns is an immense work; part African-American history and part biography of three unrelated people who were participants in what Wilkerson called, “...the first mass act of independence..... to escape what might be considered a man-made pestilence...” (p.10, p.178)

The primary arc of the text follows the migration of three individuals: Ida Mae Gladney (from Mississippi to Illinois), George Swanson Starling (from Florida to New York) and Robert Pershing Foster (from Louisiana to California). But they were not alone, Wilkerson interviewed countless other African-Americans, including her own parents, who traversed the United States anywhere between the years of 1910 to the early 1970s.

Wilkerson has taken the oral histories and the extensive research and with deft writing has woven these threads into a vivid tapestry that is wonderfully engaging.

video source:  BU Today:  Telling America's Untold Story/Isabel Wilkerson

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Book Review: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley

Phillis Wheatley

Stars: 4/5

You will make quick work of Henry Louis Gates, Jr’s essay expanded to book form; the hardback is less than 100 pages. However, don’t be mislead by its brevity. It is overflowing with information on Phillis Wheatley, the tribunal gathered to validate her authorship of published poems, an assessment of the attitude of the time (late 18th century), and a more current assessment of Phillis Wheatley’s place in the African-American literary community.

Gates sets the stage with a review of the eighteen member panel selected to determine whether recent publications of poetry was indeed written by slave girl. No doubt that the panel members possessed a discerning palate when it came to poetry and/or were skeptical of the artistic and intellectual capabilities of people of color.

Regarding Wheatley, “She is on trial and so is her race.” p.6

Regarding the eighteen member panel, “What they were not, however, was an association for the advancement of colored people.” p.15

Gates continues with his analysis; providing an exposition on the impact of Wheatley’s poetry, then and now:

“And so, against the greatest odds, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral became the first book of poetry published by a person of African descent in the English language, marking the beginning of an African-American literary tradition.” p.31

“...the overwhelming tendency in Wheatley criticism has been to upbraid her for ‘not being black enough.’” p.81
 
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Book Review: Denmark Vesey

“nothing could be done without fire.” (p.59)

Stars: 4/5

The Denmark Vesey story is a remarkable one; in today’s context it would be a crime drama. Nine years before Nat Turner’s bloody slave insurrection, Denmark Vesey, a free man, was the mastermind behind what would unfold to be the largest slave rebellion in South Carolina’s history. The major difference between the insurrections of Vesey and Turner is the latter actually took place; Vesey’s plan was never carried out. The lack of physical evidence makes the whole ordeal a little suspicious. Robertson and other historians point to the political aspirations of one individual, James Hamilton, Jr., Charleston’s Intendant, as the reason behind Vesey’s demise:

“Bennett and his brother-in-law were both of the opinion that Hamilton had exaggerated the seriousness of the rumoured slave revolt.” (p.91)

“The ‘plot’ was probably never more than loose talk by aggrieved and bitter men.” - Richard C. Wade (p. 94)

The summer of 1822 was Charleston’s darkest hour. The arrest, trial and execution of Denmark Vesey and some 30-plus co-conspirators was an overt display of superiority to slaves and black freemen alike, eradicating any thought of future rebellion; and to the frightened white people of Charleston that, “there were to be no more Denmark Veseys.” (p.122)
 
 
video source:  excerpt from Africans in America: Brotherly Love (1791-1831)
 
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Book Review: Two Trains Running

“They got two trains running every day.” p.31

Stars: 4/5

Two Trains Running by acclaimed playwright August Wilson is a play set in the Hill District of Pittsburgh in 1969. Two Trains Running is a journey through African-American culture; exploring matters such as money, death, self-image and justice. The setting is a restaurant owned by the main character, Memphis Lee, who besides being plagued by his own issues, engages daily with regular patrons: Sterling, Holloway, Wolf, West and Hambone. Risa, the restaurant cook and waitress, also plays significant role throughout the play. While each character manages his/her own personal turmoil, all lives intersect at a crucial moment providing an honest portrayal of life during this important time in African-American history.
 
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Book Review: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention

A Purpose-Driven Life

Stars: 4/5

A great comprehensive biography for a complex individual whom Ossie Davis called “...our own black shining Prince.” The dedication and research that Manning Marable put into this book is simply exhaustive... and it shows. From womb to tomb, the life of Malcolm Little is traversed here; from Malcolm Little born in Omaha, Nebraska, to Detroit Red, to Malcolm X , to El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.

In contrast to the “Autobiography of Malcolm X” by Alex Haley, Marable claims his “Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention” includes information on FBI and police surveillance, details from lost chapters that were not included in Haley’s book, access to speeches prior to 1950 and more context into Malcolm’s activities concerning MMI and OAAU.

I see that this biography has come under criticism for potential inaccuracies. However, it is still a worthy read, as well as the published counter arguments and other biographies. One book or one author is not enough to contain this man and his transformation. It is up to the astute reader to disseminate and fashion together, from all sources, the legacy of Malcolm X.
 
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Book Review: Frederick Douglass and the Fourth of July

"An apostle of freedom and a tireless agitator" p. 203

Stars: 5/5

If you are expecting this book to be about one speech given on or about one particular day - the Fourth of July - you are in for a surprise. Colaiaco has crafted an impressively comprehensive study on Frederick Douglass. The dissemination of the “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” speech is the major arc but it is not the book’s only appeal. To provide context, the author presents copious material on the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 and Supreme Court Chief Justice Taney's majority opinion on Dred Scott v. Sanford; both of which were major setbacks to the abolitionist movement but were not enough to deter Frederick Douglass. Colaiaco also provides a brief observation into the relationship between Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison and when and why their abolitionist strategies diverged. The intentions of the framers of the Constitution, other relevant Frederick Douglass speeches and Abraham Lincoln’s role during this time are also analyzed and discussed here.
I will mention that this book does not include the full “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July” speech. Although this can be easily overcome with a simple internet search, I believe it would be nice to have it included in the book as an appendix.

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Book Review: The Fires of Jubilee

 
 

The inclusion of 'Fierce' in the subtitle was no accident.

Stars: 4/5

The Fires of Jubilee is an historic account of one of the most significant slave rebellions on American soil.  Thanks to Oates exhaustive research, The Fires... provides a vivid portrayal of the gruesome deeds that Nat Turner and his band of brothers committed on that fateful day in August of 1831. 

Nat Turner, as described, was more than a slave.  By all standards, he was literate, intelligent and presented himself as a decent and trustworthy slave.   Most importantly, he was, as some considered, blessed with divine gifts and was tormented with possessing such power and yet still a slave:

“... behind Nat’s well-mannered facade was a messianic individual who felt himself driven into some corner of slavery from which there was no return.  He was like a powerful angel whose wings were nailed to the floor.” (p.41)

Nat believed that the brutality he unleashed was for a higher purpose; a ‘you shall reap what you sow’ exhibition that would somehow reveal the wrongs of slavery .

Around the time of the rebellion, Oates frames the role of the abolitionist movement as well as offering insight into the political climate of the day.  Both of which contributed to pitting North and South against each other in that critical time period leading up to the most tempestuous season in American History; the Civil War.

 
video source:  excerpt from Africans in America: Brotherly Love (1791-1831)
 
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Book Review: The Future Of The Race

The Future Of The Race

Stars: 5/5

I recommend that if you are planning to read, or have recently read, W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 essay `The Talented Tenth', that you also follow through and read `The Future Of The Race'. I, myself, landed on this book after reading The Talented Tenth (Illustrated). `The Future Of The Race', published in 1996, is a collection of essays by two of the foremost leading black public intellectuals: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Cornel West. The compositions by Gates and West specifically address W.E.B. Du Bois and `The Talented Tenth' and offer a more contemporary perspective on Du Bois's call for Black intelligentsia to be the leaders of the race. Dr. West would probably state that his critique of Du Bois at the turn of the 20th Century is out of respect, admiration and love; however, he does not hesitate in underscoring the areas where Du Bois is lacking:

"The grand example of Du Bois remains problematic principally owing to his inadequate interpretation of the human condition and his inability to immerse himself fully in the rich cultural currents of black everyday life." (p. 55)

In the essay, `The Parable of the Talents', Gates interjects his own collegiate life experiences to provide the framework to the notion that so much diversity (socioeconomic, cultural, class, etc...) exists within African-American community that just the intelligent tenth of same group would find it difficult to satisfy Du Bois's request to `save the Negro race':

"As economic differences increase, the need to maintain the appearance of cultural and ideological conformity also increases. But it is these fake masks of conformity that disguise how very vast black class differentials really are. And no amount of kinte cloth or Kwanzaa celebrations will change this." (p. 37).

For convenience and reference, both 'The Talented Tenth' and Du Bois's own critique some 45 years later, `The Talented Tenth Memorial Address', is located in the book's appendix. A great all-in-one book for readers.


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Book Review: Freedom Riders

Freedom Riders

Stars: 5/5

Before those who Marched on Washington, there were the Freedom Riders of 1961. Before Rosa Parks of 1955, there was Irene Morgan of 1944. Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia was the Supreme Court case that started it all; it’s ruling allowed for desegregated bus travel for interstate bus travelers. The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) first attempted a ‘Journey of Reconciliation’ in 1947 which tested the Supreme Court decision. The more robust Freedom Rides across the Deep South came later.

Arsenault does a superb job of covering end-to-end the transformative nature of the Freedom Rides; the first large-scale nonviolent direct action civil rights movement. The entire cast, the organizers, the Kennedy Administration and the staunch Southern segregationists are all on display here. As for the diverse band of individuals called the Freedom Riders “…the greater the hardship, the more committed they seemed to be”, you will discover that their commitment and courage is unmatched on any level. Unbeknownst to them, their attempt in 1961 to speed up the slow gradualism of racial equality, became the blueprint for future nonviolent civil rights action.

Companion DVD: American Experience: Freedom Riders [Blu-ray]



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Book Review: The Mis-Education of the Negro

“The mere imparting of information is not education.” Ch. 1

Stars: 4/5

The Mis-Education of the Negro is a powerful glimpse into the state of the Negro in the Early 20th Century as analyzed by noted African-American historian and scholar, Carter G. Woodson. Throughout Mis-Education, Woodson addresses several key points:

How the Negro ended up in his predicament:
Woodson explains that the traducers of the race, those who oppress the Negro through propaganda and mis-education, “…by teaching [the Negro] that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching. It kills one’s aspirations and dooms him to vagabondage and crime.” (Ch. 1 –The Seat of the Trouble)

Education:
“….the schools for the classical education for Negroes have not done any better… The Negro trained in the advanced phases of literature, philosophy, and politics has been unable to develop far in using his knowledge because of having to function in the lower spheres of the social order.” (Ch. 2 – How We Missed the Mark).

The apathy of the highly educated Negro:
“the highly educated Negro often grows sour….” (Ch. 1 –The Seat of the Trouble) with many siding with segregationists on the best solution for the Negro race.

Entrepreneurship:
Why Negroes will not patronize black owned businesses & the need for Negro in professions other than religious ministry are some of the topics Wooden expounds upon.



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Book Review: Hope and History

Hope and History

Stars: 4/5

Hope and History is a compilation of essays and letters written by noted historian Vincent Harding. These essays were written specifically for teachers; as teachers are, as Harding notes, “…the nurturers, the encouragers of all the dreams.” (p. 157)

Harding, leading consultant on and champion of the popular Civil Rights series, ‘Eyes on the Prize’, draws on ‘Eyes…’ in almost every essay. Hope and History reads as if it was a complementary text to the series of videos. Hope and History 2nd edition also attempts to remain current with a letter to President Barack Obama (Chapter 13) and related Obama references appearing periodically throughout the text; commentary intended to bridge the past with the present. For example:

“Forty years later the impossible became president moving through the doors that Fannie Lou Hamer had opened, Shirley Chisholm challenged, and Jesse Jackson expanded.” (p.100)

‘Eyes on the Prize’ and Hope and History should always be a part of the African-American experience/learning experience. These, as well as Harding’s other contributions, truly make him, to use his words, an Artisan of Democracy.

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Book Review: What Virtue There Is in Fire

 
Masterfully done.

Stars: 4/5

Edwin T. Arnold composes a comprehensive review of the April 12, 1899 lynching of Sam Hose in Newnan, Ga. You could probably recount the entire Sam Hose lynching in about 50 pages or less but what distinguishes Arnold's chronicle is that he provides context leading up to and surrounding that fateful day. For example, in January of same year, the Palmetto [Georgia] Massacre where nine Negroes were arrested and subsequently shot by a masked mob had already tightened the vise of racial tension.

Another ominous precedent was the torture and burning of Henry Smith in Paris, Texas 6 years earlier. Arnold recaps the entire event and considers it, "....one of the first spectacle burnings, one that would provide a protocol for Sam Hose's execution..." (Ch. 6 - A Holocaust of Human Flesh)

Finally, the print media and its role is featured prominently throughout the text. It provides insight into the general consensus of the day and how the Sam Hose lynching was viewed by all, nationally and internationally.

W.E.B. DuBois points to the "grisly lynching" of Sam Hose as the event that `pulled him off of his feet' - the impetus to begin his long march against racial injustice. I will contend that after reading `What Virtue...', you will be moved as well.

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Book Review: The Heroic Slave

"The hope of freedom seemed to sweeten...the bitter cup of slavery"   Pt. I

Stars: 4/5

Frederick Douglass's 1852 venture into fiction is a short tale of a slave, Madison Washington, and his attempts to escape enslavement and flee to Canada. Along the way, Madison meets Mr. Listwell, a white abolitionist, who befriends him and aids him in his escape. For fear of giving too much away - you'll have to read it for yourself - in the end, we hear of Madison landing on the shores of Nassau, Bahamas.

Although it didn’t reach the prominence in anti-slavery fiction as Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the same year, The Heroic Slave is substantial in the fact that it was written by distinguished abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.

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Book Review: A Home Elsewhere

A Home Elsewhere

Stars: 4/5

A Home Elsewhere is an impressive collection of six academic lectures and essays by Robert Stepto, Professor of American Studies, African-American Studies, and English at Yale University. I was first drawn to this book after reading Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama. In the first half of the compilation, Stepto collates 'Dreams...' with other classic African-American narratives and novels such as My Bondage and My Freedom - Frederick Douglass, Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Souls of Black Folk to name a few. The authors and/or characters and the episode, scene or storyline are compared and contrasted to bring similarities to light.

The second half of the book ranges from an engaging memoir of Stepo's first year of collegiate life in 'A Greyhound Kind of Mood' to an erudite essay in 'Afterword: Distrust of the Reader in Afro-American Narratives'. Also included here is a brief introduction to Willard Savoy and his protagonist, Kern Roberts, in Savoy's novel Alien Land

If you are a reader, avid or otherwise, of important African-American literary work, you will appreciate Stepo's scholarly treatment as he situates authors, characters and narratives in the Age of Obama.

Besides the titles listed above, the following are other notable references used in A Home Elsewhere:
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Heroic Slave
The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man
Song of Solomon
Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave, Written by Himself

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Book Review: Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America

"Who we are depends on who we believe we are." - Chpt. 7

Stars: 4/5

In his book, Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Eugene Robinson, proposes that the once monolithic Black America has been fractionalized into four distinct groups:

1) The Abandoned. These are the marginalized, the poor, the working poor and the disenfranchised; think those trapped on rooftops during Hurricane Katrina. These are the Black Americans who are stuck in a generational cycle of welfare, teen pregnancy, and lackluster public education; they live in urban dwellings and rely on public transportation.

2) The Mainstream. Once known as the Middle Class is now an ever-growing body of Black Americans. Those Abandoned fortunate enough to break the cycle have launched themselves into this group.

3) Transcendent Elite. Those with the resources (money or power) to command. Those who have seemingly launched into the stratosphere of Black America; think Oprah, Obama, Will Smith, Bob & Shelia Johnson, a select few African American CEOs, etc....

4) Emergent. The newest and fastest growing of the four groups, consisting of two sub-groups: bi-racial and Black immigrants. Both labeled as Black by default.

Robinson recalls that during the Civil Rights era that Black Americans marched as one because Black Americans were oppressed as one. In the 21st Century, it is clear, for example, that Mainstream Black America marches to a different drum beat, while the drums of the Abandoned go unheard. Since one can no longer depict and address Black America as one in solidarity, Robinson sets aside Chapter 9, Urgency, Focus, and Sacrifice, to offer some advice on moving forward.


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Book Review: Dark Days, Bright Nights

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Dark Days, Bright Nights

Stars: 5/5

Peniel Joesph's deep dive into the civil rights era, culling out Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, et al. to examine the relationship between the men and the movement is unrivaled in its academic analysis. The participants, messages & timelines of the Civil Rights campaign, the era of Black Power/Pan-Africanism and Barack Obama's unprecedented rise to America's highest political office are carefully dissected and analyzed. By comparing and contrasting the civil disobedience generation to Carmichael's Black Power activism to transitioning to Obama's call to adhere to a higher standard of racial harmony, Joseph reveals the connective tissue that binds these iconic figures together.



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Book Review: David Walker's Appeal

"We must and shall be free I say, in spite of you." (pg. 89)

Stars: 5/5

Compelling; probably even more so to the readers of early 19th century. Imagine David Walker, born a free black man, wrote the first edition of his Appeal in 1829 blistering slavery protagonists as he states his case in four Articles:

Article I: Our Wretchedness In Consequence Of Slavery - Walker takes on Thomas Jefferson and his book Notes on the State of Virginia (Penguin Classics); refuting Jefferson's notion that blacks are inferior to whites. Walker also offers that the treatment of the Israelites under the Egyptian Pharaohs as being far better than the treatment of blacks under whites.

Article II: Our Wretchedness In Consequence Of Ignorance - Walker is concerned about how blacks remain oppressed due to ignorance and mis-education and how this strategy, championed by the slave master, has allowed slavery to endure. The thought of an educated black man strikes fear in the heart of the white slave master but it's only through education and enlightenment can one envision freedom and break the bonds of slavery.

Article III: Our Wretchedness In Consequence Of The Preachers Of The Religion Of Jesus Christ - Walker warns that enslavers will one day be called to judgment: "What right, then, has one of us to despise another, and to treat him cruel, on account of his colour, which none, but God who made can alter."

Article IV: Our Wretchedness In Consequence Of The Colonizing Plan - Walker derides Henry Clay's Colonizing Plan, a scheme to return free blacks to Africa to a supposedly greater freedom while keeping the enslaved blacks in America.

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Book Review: The Fire Next Time

"The Fire..." is a trailblazer

Stars: 4/5

The Fire Next Time (1963) by James Baldwin begins with "My Dungeon Shook", a letter to his nephew; a `let's keep it real' moment between elder and youth. Baldwin informs to his nephew that because of the color of his skin, white America has cast him in a role in which he has no control:

"You were born into a society....You were not expected to aspire to excellence; you were expected to make peace with mediocrity."

The selection that follows, "Down At The Cross", offers a flashback to Baldwin's most impressionable adolescent years where he vividly recounts the state of affairs of black folk in Harlem:

"For the wages of sin were visible everywhere, in every wine-stained...hallway, in every clanging ambulance bell..., in every helpless, newborn baby being brought into this danger, in every...fight on the Avenue, and in every disastrous bulletin: a cousin, mother of six, suddenly gone mad, the children parcelled out here and there; an indestructible aunt rewarded for years of hard labor by a slow agonizing death in a terrible small room..."

This then broadens into a frank discussion concerning faith, which consumes the remainder of the book. From Baldwin's religious enlightenment and conversion, to his meeting with Elijah Muhammed, to his views on the treatment of the American Negro, you will discover what makes this book such an interesting read.

The Fire Next Time is an exploration into the complexities of the 1960s through the thoughts of one of the most significant Black writers of the time.


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