From former Los Angeles Times editorial writer Mills (A Place in the News, 1988)—a biography more fulsome than definitive of civil-rights activist Fannie Lou Hamer. The 20th child of dirt-poor black Mississippi sharecroppers, and with little schooling, Hamer was an unlikely candidate for greatness—but in the late 60's and early 70's, she came to symbolize black efforts to achieve full political and economical participation in the South. In 1962, the 44-year-old Hamer attended a meeting of the Freedom Riders—a meeting that, aimed at organizing black voter registration, would lead to her addressing the Democratic Convention, to national awards, and to invitations to the White House—as well as to jail and a severe beating. Deeply religious and known for her powerful singing (the book's title comes from her favorite freedom song), Hamer challenged the seating of the all-white Mississippi delegation at the 1964 Democratic Convention and the legitimacy of Mississippi's congressional representatives; continued to register voters; ran for Congress against segregationist stalwarts; and called for an end to poverty. Ensuing civil-rights legislation vindicated her efforts, but, by the early 70's, her radicalism—she was against the Vietnam War and favored land redistribution—had alienated many of her supporters. She was, however, as Andrew Young eulogized at her funeral, a woman ``who had the nerve to shake the foundations of this nation.'' Understandably partisan, though a more objective assessment would better serve the indomitable Fannie. Still: a useful reminder of a not-so-distant past, as well as a—perhaps unintentional- -primer on the realities of fame and politics. (Photos—16 pp. b&w- -not seen.)
Pub Date: Jan. 6, 1993
ISBN: 0-525-93501-0
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Dutton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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