A welcome resurrection of a forgotten episode in the sorrowful history of segregation.
Searching history of an event long hidden in the annals of the Civil Rights Movement.
Selma, Montgomery, Birmingham: Alabama’s cities have long been commemorated as flashpoints in the Black struggle for equality. Tuscaloosa, writes University of Alabama professor Giggie, should be mentioned in the same breath as “an important battleground in the escalating conflict between Black activists and white segregationists in the South during the 1960s.” There, on June 9, 1964, a combined force of city police and KKK members attacked Black protestors, sending almost 100 to jail and badly injuring dozens more. One of the instigators was Imperial Wizard Robert Shelton, who drew on a force of an estimated 10,000 members and sympathizers in Alabama alone. Local police were squarely on the side of the segregationists, backed by the infamous Bull Connor in Birmingham. That the violent suppression in Tuscaloosa isn’t better known, writes Giggie, can be attributed to many factors. Other events crowded it off the front page, most survivors and onlookers kept silent out of fear, and “none of the white people responsible for the violence were compelled to explain themselves and be held accountable.” Justice slowly arced all the same: One KKK attack met with armed response from the Black community; a confrontation with actor Jack Palance (assumed to be Black due to his deeply tanned appearance) led to negative publicity for the city; Shelton lost his job; the chief of police eventually turned on the KKK; and, in time, the University of Alabama was desegregated, along with other city and state institutions. For all that, notes the author, the current right-wing move to suppress the history of civil rights means that it will be all the more difficult for the lessons of Tuscaloosa to be aired.
A welcome resurrection of a forgotten episode in the sorrowful history of segregation.Pub Date: June 3, 2024
ISBN: 9780197766668
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Oxford Univ.
Review Posted Online: April 20, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2024
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.
The Harvard historian and Texas native demonstrates what the holiday means to her and to the rest of the nation.
Initially celebrated primarily by Black Texans, Juneteenth refers to June 19, 1865, when a Union general arrived in Galveston to proclaim the end of slavery with the defeat of the Confederacy. If only history were that simple. In her latest, Gordon-Reed, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, and numerous other honors, describes how Whites raged and committed violence against celebratory Blacks as racism in Texas and across the country continued to spread through segregation, Jim Crow laws, and separate-but-equal rationalizations. As Gordon-Reed amply shows in this smooth combination of memoir, essay, and history, such racism is by no means a thing of the past, even as Juneteenth has come to be celebrated by all of Texas and throughout the U.S. The Galveston announcement, notes the author, came well after the Emancipation Proclamation but before the ratification of the 13th Amendment. Though Gordon-Reed writes fondly of her native state, especially the strong familial ties and sense of community, she acknowledges her challenges as a woman of color in a state where “the image of Texas has a gender and a race: “Texas is a White man.” The author astutely explores “what that means for everyone who lives in Texas and is not a White man.” With all of its diversity and geographic expanse, Texas also has a singular history—as part of Mexico, as its own republic from 1836 to 1846, and as a place that “has connections to people of African descent that go back centuries.” All of this provides context for the uniqueness of this historical moment, which Gordon-Reed explores with her characteristic rigor and insight.
A concise personal and scholarly history that avoids academic jargon as it illuminates emotional truths.Pub Date: May 4, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-63149-883-1
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Liveright/Norton
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.
A highly instructive exploration of “current affairs and…the immediate future of human societies.”
Having produced an international bestseller about human origins (Sapiens, 2015, etc.) and avoided the sophomore jinx writing about our destiny (Homo Deus, 2017), Harari (History/Hebrew Univ. of Jerusalem) proves that he has not lost his touch, casting a brilliantly insightful eye on today’s myriad crises, from Trump to terrorism, Brexit to big data. As the author emphasizes, “humans think in stories rather than in facts, numbers, or equations, and the simpler the story, the better. Every person, group, and nation has its own tales and myths.” Three grand stories once predicted the future. World War II eliminated the fascist story but stimulated communism for a few decades until its collapse. The liberal story—think democracy, free markets, and globalism—reigned supreme for a decade until the 20th-century nasties—dictators, populists, and nationalists—came back in style. They promote jingoism over international cooperation, vilify the opposition, demonize immigrants and rival nations, and then win elections. “A bit like the Soviet elites in the 1980s,” writes Harari, “liberals don’t understand how history deviates from its preordained course, and they lack an alternative prism through which to interpret reality.” The author certainly understands, and in 21 painfully astute essays, he delivers his take on where our increasingly “post-truth” world is headed. Human ingenuity, which enables us to control the outside world, may soon re-engineer our insides, extend life, and guide our thoughts. Science-fiction movies get the future wrong, if only because they have happy endings. Most readers will find Harari’s narrative deliciously reasonable, including his explanation of the stories (not actually true but rational) of those who elect dictators, populists, and nationalists. His remedies for wildly disruptive technology (biotech, infotech) and its consequences (climate change, mass unemployment) ring true, provided nations act with more good sense than they have shown throughout history.
Harari delivers yet another tour de force.Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-51217-2
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
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