A David and Goliath story in which Goliath wins.
An African-American washerwoman seeks justice from an entrenched government.
Legal historian and activist Berry (History/Univ. of Pennsylvania; The Pig Farmer’s Daughter and Other Tales of American Justice, 1999) unearths the tale of Callie House (1861–1928), a forgotten figure of post-Reconstruction history. The period of House’s youth, writes Berry, is considered the nadir of civil rights, “the lowest point along the long, rough road African Americans had traveled since Emancipation,” when poll taxes, literacy tests and discriminatory legislation barred blacks from voting and withheld other rights; at the same time, the federal government defaulted on its promises to grant land and financial relief to former slaves while granting amnesty to former slaveholders, even encouraging those former slaves to return to the old plantations to work as laborers. Against this climate, House founded the Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty and Pension Association to advance proposed reparations that linked payments to those born into slavery to pensions paid to former Union soldiers. The movement, writes Berry, found opposition on all sides, and many prominent African-American newspapers and politicians derided House’s efforts as “a distraction from the struggle for political rights and a hopeless cause.” More ominously, postal officials in Tennessee, where House lived, suppressed the movement, prosecuting House for mail fraud as she solicited funds to support the organization. Though the government’s case was weak, House was imprisoned for a time, working alongside the anarchist Emma Goldman as a prison seamstress. Her movement fell into disrepair, and House lived out the last years of her life in obscurity. Berry’s careful consideration of these events is of much use to historians of the early civil-rights movement; of more interest to general readers is her epilogue, linking House’s efforts to current ones to seek financial compensation for the descendants of slaves.
A David and Goliath story in which Goliath wins.Pub Date: Sept. 6, 2005
ISBN: 1-4000-4003-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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