The Great Migration: An American Story

Book Description

Around the time of WWI, large numbers of African Americans began leaving their homes in the rural South in search of employment in the industrial cities of the North. In 1940, Lawrence chronicled their journey of hope in a flowing narrative sequence of paintings."This stirring picture book brings together the sixty panels of Lawrence's epic narrative Migration series, which he created in 1940-1941. They tell of the journey of African-Americans who left their homes in the South around World War I and traveled in search of better lives in the northern industrial cities. Lawrence is a storyteller with words as well as pictures: his captions and introduction to this book are the best commentary on his work. A poem at the end by Walter Dean Myers also reveals [as do the paintings] the universal in the particulars." --BL.

Notable Children's Books of 1994 (ALA)
1993 Books for Youth Editors' Choices (BL)
1994 Teachers' Choices (IRA)
Notable 1994 Childrens' Trade Books in Social Studies (NCSS/CBC)
1994 Carter G. Woodson Outstanding Merit Book (NCSS)
1994 Books for the Teen Age (NY Public Library)

Customer Reviews:

Art-lovers for life.......2002-10-02

Parents hoping to introduce their children to modern American art could do worse than to buy this edition reproducing 60 paintings by Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), one of the finest African American artists in U.S. history.

First published for children in a 1993 limited edition, with a poem by Walter Dean Myers, this volume reproduces the Great Migration series that Lawrence created in 1940 and 1941 to tell the story of the African American migration north, from the plantations and cotton fields of the antebellum era.

Begun within a year after Lawrence completed a magnificent Harriet Tubman series, these tempura colored, poster paint works made Jacob Lawrence's career. It's easy to see why. Bold and unforgiving, these vibrant works grew from Lawrence's own childhood migration--from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Easton, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia and finally, at 13, to Harlem--his exposure to African-American culture and his intensive training in the Utopia Children's House and New Deal-sponsored Harlem Art Workshop of the 1930s.

At that time, the WPA was still funding public art murals, but Lawrence was too young to gain a commission. Instead, he determined to show the African-American struggle for freedom in real-life stories that would tie the past to the present.

From 1938 to 1941, he used the New York public library for research, creating in swift succession five series of paintings telling the stories of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and The Migration of the Negro.

In the last of these, Lawrence hoped to speak artistically of a mass escape from the rural, discriminatory and unjust South--a region of poverty and illiteracy--into an anxious era of hope and expectation in the North. The paintings depicted passage, with railways, train cars, suitcases, and hordes of people constantly in motion. Their visages and body language spoke in terms of expectation and fear. Lawrence wove bold colors and themes throughout the series, thereby joining the paintings into a unit.

In a documentary shown in a museum tour of Lawrence's work, the artist said he "didn't think in terms of history in that series. ...It was like I was doing a portrait of something." Portraits were "a portrait of myself, a portrait of my family, a portrait of my peers."

Lawrence's extraordinary talent was recognized when he was only 24, with the 1941 exhibition of these paintings in the downtown gallery of art dealer Edith Halpert, who had beforehand exclusively shown the work of white artists. So breathtaking were the paintings (as they remain), they instantly transported Lawrence across the U.S. racial divide of that era, making him deservedly famous. The Philips Gallery in Washington D.C. purchased the odd-numbered paintings; the Museum of Modern Art in New York took the even ones.

Treat your kids to this triumph of the human spirit, and to the fine accompanying Myers poem. These paintings make children into art-lovers, for life. Alyssa A. Lappen

A pleasure to read and a pleasure to see........2000-06-13

I checked this book out from the library over a year ago and knew from the illustration that Jacob Lawrence was a special person. I was drawn to the illustration because it is soothing. His illustration style is flat, yet there is a world of depth. It is the kind of art that I could have on my wall and never tire of. I remember more the art than the story. The art told a story. This book is as much for adults as it is for children. Since hearing that Jacob Lawrence died...I instantly felt the need to get one of his books for my home library.

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution

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Simply Brilliant
Slaves and the American Revolution
The American Revolution and Some Unpleasant Facts
a history with an agenda
Dorment History

Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution
Simon Schama
Manufacturer: Ecco
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

West Africa | Africa | History | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 006053916X
Release Date: 2006-04-25

Book Description

Rough Crossings turns on a single huge question: if you were black in America at the start of the Revolutionary War, whom would you want to win? In response to a declaration by the last governor of Virginia that any rebel-owned slave who escaped and served the King would be emancipated, tens of thousands of slaves -- Americans who clung to the sentimental notion of British freedom -- escaped from farms, plantations and cities to try to reach the British camp. This mass movement lasted as long as the war did, and a military strategy originally designed to break the plantations of the American South had unleashed one of the great exoduses in American history.

With powerfully vivid storytelling, Schama details the odyssey of the escaped blacks through the fires of war and the terror of potential recapture at the war's end, into inhospitable Nova Scotia, where thousands who had served the Crown were betrayed and, in a little-known hegira of the slave epic, sent across the broad, stormy ocean to Sierra Leone.

Customer Reviews:

Simply Brilliant.......2007-08-25

The story of Granville Sharp is a fascinating insight into how English common law operates and how with diligent study campaigners can use it to alter the nations history. Sharp proved that it had never been legal for one human to own another in England by pointing to a precedent where visiting Russian serfs had been set free in the 16th century. He argued successfully that it didn't matter what foreign laws said, even those in the colonies, as England was a free country. It was an incredible step towards the eventual abolition of slavery.
Wealthy corporations and colonists were not only hell bent on destroying those freedoms once outside of English law, they also wanted to destroy them in England. The West India lobby were massively influential in parliament, boosted by purchasing many seats in rotten boroughs. Many ordinary people feared their influence, as if they could establish slavery in England it would mean that the state would hold powers that could make many other citizens lives miserable. In many ways it was similar to the battle fought between the northern and southern states about the legality of slavery. However, Schama shows how in America, Britain's policy of freeing slaves to fight against the rebels brought the pro and anti-slavery factions together. I couldn't help feeling that unlike Granville Sharp's campaign there was little honour in freeing slaves for tactical reasons and by doing so they possibly set back the cause of abolitionists in America and lost the southern states who would have been more likely to remain loyal.

Slaves and the American Revolution.......2007-08-23

Enlightening TRUE story of the part slaves played in the American Revolution.
This part of history is not taught in American schools.
Interesting to hear the British side to the Revolution.
Well written and fascinating for those interested in another point of view.

The American Revolution and Some Unpleasant Facts.......2007-03-31

"Rough Crossings" is a rare and quite extraordinary book. It offers the reader an insight to a previously near hidden part of American history. It is, simply, a revelation.

American history lauds the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the subsequent revolutionary war as a turning point in world history. This is true. But how many people would understand that the new country, ostensibly based on freedom, was also a slave pariah state especially when compared with Great Britain? I suspect that very few Americans are aware of the facts.

As part of its war strategy, the British offered freedom to any American slave who could cross the lines. Tens of thousands of slaves took up the offer. To them, American freedom meant nothing. It was a revolution for the whites. It failed to address slavery. Indeed, many of the signatories to the Declaration of Independence were themselves slave owners. They were by their words and deeds nothing short of hypocrites.

Simon Schama's book, although somewhat meandering at times, has seemingly unearthed something new to the reader of American history. Not only does he outline the fact that slaves fled their American owners but that many ultimately settled in Nova Scotia. Several years later, the British even tried to establish a utopian new society in Sierra Leone where, briefly, black women could vote. We know that this dream failed but its protagonists were men of great humanity.

It is true that history is often written by winners. The great shame here is that these winners have avoided certain unpleasant facts that spoil an otherwise good story.

a history with an agenda.......2007-03-27

Simon Schama is a historian of all things British with strong points of view. I'm not sure what to make of this book because it almost seems like it was written to a poke a decidedly British finger into American eyes over the events of the revolutionary war.

Schama somehow wants to turn the opportunistic decision of the British authorities to free some slaves during the revolutionary war into a moral act and some sort of revolution. Problem is, it doesn't work very well.

The British had an empire full of slaves. They didn't free any slaves on moral or philosophical grounds. They emancipated the slaves of those in rebellion as a punishment to stamp out the revolution. The other problem is that most of the areas with high concentrations of slaves were sideshows to the revolutionary war. There were no great slave emancipations in New York or Boston or any of the other places were the fighting of the revolution occured.

Schama's most utterly despicable suggestion is to say that the slave emancipations became a key issue in the war and increased support for it. While it was true that the issue increased support for the war in places like the Carolinas and Georgia, those states were hardly the birthplace of the revolution. In making his claim, he insults the people in Boston, New York and Philidephia who were not slave owners and who were the firm supporters of the revolution from day one.

Schama is also an apologist for the postwar behavior of the British. The promises they made after a few years turned into a project that sent the freed slaves back to Africa (Sierra Leone) where they became a local elite to oversee and staff British rule in the area. As in Liberia, an educated ex-slave elite from America showed that they could misrule areas of Africa as well as an european could.

Schama's "goal" in the book seems to be to attack the American Revolution as somehow being about the preservation of Slavery and to morally rehabilitate the British soldiers in North America. In trying to accomplish this, he crosses the line. He misrepresents history and presents a selective case. Nobody can deny the role of slavery in American History from the revolution onward. But trying to reduce events to British heroes and evil Americans serves no good purpose and makes for a rotten history.

Dorment History.......2007-03-21

Although I have studied American History, I never read or heard about this part of our history. Although I have studied about slavery in America and its outcome, I never learned about the role the British played in the freeing of American slaves.

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America

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History repeats itself.
The Rising Tide
The Great Flood
They're Gonna Wash Us Away - The Rest of the Story
Outstanding Piece of Work in History, Politics and Humanity

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America
John M. Barry
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Natural Disasters | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0684840022

Amazon.com

When Mother Nature rages, the physical results are never subtle. Because we cannot contain the weather, we can only react by tabulating the damage in dollar amounts, estimating the number of people left homeless, and laying the plans for rebuilding. But as John M. Barry expertly details in Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America, some calamities transform much more than the landscape.

While tracing the history of the nation's most destructive natural disaster, Barry explains how ineptitude and greed helped cause the flood, and how the policies created to deal with the disaster changed the culture of the Mississippi Delta. Existing racial rifts expanded, helping to launch Herbert Hoover into the White House and shifting the political alliances of many blacks in the process. An absorbing account of a little-known, yet monumental event in American history, Rising Tide reveals how human behavior proved more destructive than the swollen river itself.

Book Description

An American epic of science, politics, race, honor, high society, and the Mississippi River, Rising Tide tells the riveting and nearly forgotten story of the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known -- the Mississippi flood of 1927. The river inundated the homes of nearly one million people, helped elect Huey Long governor and made Herbert Hoover president, drove hundreds of thousands of blacks north, and transformed American society and politics forever.

A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, winner of the Southern Book Critics Circle Award and the Lillian Smith Award.

Customer Reviews:

History repeats itself........2007-08-20

I happened to read this book when I was home from work waiting for Hurricane Katrina to make landfall (I live in Baton Rouge, 80 miles North of New Orleans). It was an ironic that I read this book that day. I had no idea of the book's relevance to that day's events. John Barry documents the events and reasons leading up to the great flood of 1927 in incredible detail. Being from South Louisiana, I knew a little about the flood, but most of what I thought I knew was not correct. The facts of what the US Corp of Engineers did or did not do is readily available from a number of sources. The Corp of Engineer's competence or incompetence is subject to debate (Well, It was subject to debate until August 29, 2005). The real revelations as far as I am concerned are the cultural and economic factors that Barry weaves into an enlightening book. It shows how the powers that ruled New Orleans (Canal Bank, Whitney Bank, Hibernia Bank and the Times Picayune Newspaper) deceived and lied to maintain their power and riches at everyone else's expense. St Bernard Parish (County to most of you) was sacrificed by bombing the levee system below New Orleans to take the pressure off of the New Orleans levees (as it turns out, unnecessarily). The amazing part of the book is the "how it changed America" part. From the creation of the Federal based welfare system, Herbert Hoover's rise to stardom and the ultimate election of Huey Long as Governor of Louisiana (and had he not been assassinated, may be President of the United States), the 1927 flood changed America more than any event I can think of other than the Revolutionary War and Civil War. This is a GREAT book worth your time to read. It is said that in order to know the future, you must study the past. Too bad we're still not paying attention !!!!!!!!!!!

The Rising Tide.......2007-02-18

I've barely dipped into the first chapter of this, plus reading at random to wherever the book fell open, and I'm awed. Barry's attention to detail and exhaustive documentation of his sources are exemplary. It is also a darn good read, and it is his thoroughness which makes it that way -- the principal players stand out like characters in a good novel. There was recently a PBS special (I believe it was The American Experience) on the history of New Orleans, and although Barry appeared in it, not nearly enough attention was paid to the 1927 flood, especially to some of the most unsavory aspects such as the machinations of the local power structure. Other than the pleasure of reading this book, I highly recommend it because we had a replay of this in Katrina with a similar display of greed, insensitivity and incompetence. And if it can happen in New Orleans, it can happen anywhere!

The Great Flood.......2006-12-14

I had never heard of the Mississippi flood before picking up this book and I am surprised that I had never hard of it after reading about it. This is arguably the greatest natural disaster to hit the United States until Hurricane Katrina. To see the response of the government then and now there are shocking similarities The army corp of engineers makes a similar performance and it is through private enterprise and local political networks that areas are saved. One of the sadder points in the book is the treatment of African Americans and southern racism in this time period is clearly displayed in most areas. The flood which wiped out parts of Mississippi and spread down to New Orleans was catastrophic. Seeing the idea of detonating levees and sacrificing areas of save others were tough choices that have implications in the post Katrina world. This is a highly recommend book that will make one think about natural disaster response from a truly catastrophic event.

They're Gonna Wash Us Away - The Rest of the Story.......2006-11-02

Randy Newman told the story of the great Louisiana flood of 1927 in a few memorable but not very historically accurate verses. Barry tells it with painstaking research and narrative of 75 years surrounding and including 1927. He opens with the civil engineering debate that raged for years about how to "control" the Mississippi River--levees or controlled drainage. Once the flood happens he focuses on how people dealt with it as it was happening (race relations in the early 20th century were sorely tested) and afterwards (St. Bernard and Plaquemines Parishes, having been sacrifice to "save" New Orleans, were left almost low and dry when it came time to distribute money for recovery---sound familiar?) One memorable theme is that nature is unsympathetic to political compromise. Barry rivals David McCullough in the genre of popular history writers.

Outstanding Piece of Work in History, Politics and Humanity.......2006-10-26

Mr. Barry has done an exceptional job of weaving the elements of modern life together, natural disaster, power, money, politics, race together to tell an ingrossing and disturbing story, one that is a relevant today as it was when it happened in the late twenties. America is still affected by what happened then and faces many of the same challenges today--Katrina and whenever or whereever there is great human suffering brought on by natural disaster. (Just wait until the New Madrid earthquake occurs again. That may be the only natural disaster that could rival this flood and its effect on our nation, society and culture.)

Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely, and money--having it--makes that corruption and the arrogance that comes with it, even more dangerous, despicable and deadly. We face all of those issues and threats today, and it is not limited to a political party, but rather to class,to wealth and, sadly and alarmingly, to those we "elect" to represent and protect us.

This book is a sobering look at America as it was, and, sadly, as it is. Political parties do not matter....This not about man's highest, nor is it about man's lowest. It is about man as he is...

The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown

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African Americans and their background
The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown

The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown
Tim Hashaw
Manufacturer: Carroll & Graf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 0786717181

Book Description

The voyage that shaped early America was neither that of the Susan Constant in 1607 nor the Mayflower in 1620. Absolutely vital to the formation of English-speaking America was the voyage made by some sixty Africans stolen from a Spanish slave ship and brought to the young struggling colony of Jamestown in 1619. It was an act of colonial piracy that angered King James I of England, causing him to carve up the Virginia Company’s monopoly for virtually all of North America. It was an infusion of brave and competent souls who were essential to Jamestown’s survival and success. And it was the arrival of pioneers who would fire the first salvos in the centuries-long African-American battle for liberation. Until now, it has been buried by historians.

Four hundred years after the birth of English-speaking America, as a nation turns its attention to its ancestry, The Birth of Black America reconstructs the true origins of the United States and of the African-American experience.

Customer Reviews:

African Americans and their background.......2007-08-07

This book is excellent for 1) putting the arrival of Africans at Jamestown in context both in European (English, Spanish and Portuguese) politics of the time, and 2) giving in great detail the political, social and economic situation of the Angolan kingdom whence these Africans originated. The activities of the Spanish ambassador to the court of King James is enjoyable diplomatic intrigue; the relation of James to Africa is convincing and should be part of literary studies of Ben Jonson's work. I was amazed to learn that many of the enslaved Africans had Christian backgrounds of several generations, and familiarity with European languages and customs, resulting from Portuguese colonization and missionary activities for more than a century prior. Hashaw does himself credit in showing the similarities and differences in the political and military activities and alliances of these African and European rulers and aristocracies. In addition, he shows in great detail the identities, activities and onward movements of these Africans and their descendents (who are normally anonymous figures in standard histories), and gives credible evidence on the origin of the Melungeon families of Appalachia, and insight into the contributions of Africans to cattle herding and to agricultural success in the Americas. A real page-turner -- a riveting and enlightening account that makes fresh some once-stale facts from your obligatory American history class.

The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown.......2007-03-30

The book was excellent!

The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America

Average customer rating:

Worthy but not about what the title says
Recommended by a conservative talk show host
Great read with valuable insights on US history
Terrific reading
outstanding book.

The Promised Land: The Great Black Migration and How It Changed America
Nicholas Lemann
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Civil Rights & Liberties | Current Events | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Emigration & Immigration | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0679733477
Release Date: 1992-03-31

Book Description

A New York Times bestseller, the groundbreaking authoritative history of the migration of African-Americans from the rural South to the urban North. A definitive book on American history, The Promised Land is also essential reading for educators and policymakers at both national and local levels.

Customer Reviews:

Worthy but not about what the title says.......2007-09-12

This is a well written interesting book presenting information vital to understanding contemporary America. At the same thime this is only indirectly a book about the Great Black Migration. Rather it is about policies at the federal level, especially the collage of programs called the "war on poverty" and how they relate to American society in the 1960s and 1970s with examples from several African Americans from the Clarksdale Mississippi area who migrated to Chicago, several of them returning to Clarksdale.

One of the most valuable parts of the book--and well-written-is the description of the changes that went on in the 1940s with mechanism of agriculture that led to the migration--cotton got picked and then weeded mechanically the army of cotton field hads who had been the most important segment of the African American population was no longer needed in the South. This is one of the best and most practical explanations of this, especially as he focuses on Clarksdale Mississippi and the surrounding area. He gives a good history of the evolution of the cotton crop in the area and the evolution of Black society, providing examples in the lives of several people.

To me this is quite useful because one of my chief focuses is the history of the Blues. Clarksdale --the big town near where Muddy Waters, Ike Turner, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, Son House, Charlie Batton, and so many other Blues singers came from--is central to the history of the Delta Blues. Knowing the social and economic conditions that existed there is quite useful for music scholars who can profit from this part of the book.

Lemann is pretty good in descripting the way the plantation system broke up families and how the immigration to Chicago impacted several different Clarksdale folk who travelled up to Chicago. He charts their stories getting into Chicago in the 1940s and early 1950s fairly well.

Once he does this, there is an abrupt shift. He tries to chart the various conflicts in the Kennedy and Johnson administration about dealing with the Black urban problems, the rebellions, and poverty, which is really an aside from discussing Black migration. In this regard as he used Clarksdale as an example, he uses Chicago where all of his people from Clarksdale have migrated. I would imagine that the intimate detail that he goes into regarding the inside debates on forming the poverty programs and the infighting between Johnson and Kennedy factions of the Democratic party over it and the way the Daley machine in Chicago related to all of this is of interest to many people. It was told in such a way that even though I am not interested in it, it was interesting though not absorbing.

He presents the end result of the programs is that they never did anything but create a larger base for the Black middle and upper middle class among administrators of these programs and other public functionary jobs. In the 1960s, many of us who fought for a perspective for Black people independent of the Republicans and Democrats pointed out that this was the actual purpose of the programs, not to end poverty, but to encorporate political activists who might otherwise be drawn into the struggle for the interests of Black people into the apparatus of the government and into the feeding ground to become part of the Democratic and Republican parties and corporate America.

Lemann is good at showing the failure of these programs and the hell they produced for Black working folk like the subjects of his story, but he rarely steps back and examines the larger question of the way society as a whole functions.

If American capitalist society persistently creates a large army of poor African Americans, now supplemented by millions of equally poor or poorer workers without papers with even less rights, is this not something reqired by the system. Is this not a damper of the attempts of all working people for better working conditions, better wages, better social programs in education, health, and the environment. Is this not a feeding ground for the racist ideas that nourish acceptance of this society. Is this not a way of stopping social solidarity among working folks.

Again, I expected an overall history of the migration covering the whole of the nation in the 20th Century. This is not that book, but an extremely readable book giving very good case studies of how the Southern cotton plantation system worked, how it ended, and a history of the war on poverty in the 1960s and early 1970s. In passing, he provides some stories of African Americans women and men who lived through this history.

Recommended by a conservative talk show host.......2007-02-09

Years ago, on the recommendation of a black conservative talk show host, I read this book. While I could understand how this man could read a corroboration of his own views into this book, the conclusions I drew were considerably more compassionate. This historical analysis does not propose solutions as much as illustrate and analyze the issues of ascendancy from slavery.

Great read with valuable insights on US history.......2006-11-02

As an historic account, The Promised Land contains many interesting personal anecdotes hung on the framework of a much broader social picture that make the book an engaging and informative read. Although the book covered many different characters, which made it hard to follow at times, each one had a valuable contribution to make to Lemann's work in portraying for his readers the society and factors that influenced migration amongst the black population in the middle of the 20th century. I think Lemann could be criticized for focusing too much on the political sparring during the chapter on Washington, which digresses from the book's topic of black migration and adds little relevant information. I also think that while Lemann's relating of the personal lives of black migrants has the advantage of being engaging, it has the disadvantage of perhaps being too personal. In other words, the experiences of the individuals he elects to interview and record may not accurately relate the average experience for a migrant. I think that to carry more weight, the stories must be compared to some sort of statistical data to show that they correlate to the norm. I felt the writing was eloquent yet easily readable. I gained a much greater understanding of two areas of history of the United States of which I had little prior knowledge: the life of African-Americans in the Civil Rights era and the domestic influences of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations in focusing on poverty amongst the black minority.

Terrific reading.......2006-06-28

For someone who has just visited the delta area of Mississippi and actually traversed some of the hollow grounds of the plantations all thru the Clarksdale area, this was accurate,enjoyable and fascinating reading.

outstanding book........2000-07-04

This was an excellent combination of conveying historical fact with painting the picture by telling the stories of several people and families who lived the history. A fascinating period in history and a great read.

The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America

Average customer rating:

Excellent look in population shift
harder experiences for blacks than for whites
Required for class

The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America
James N. Gregory
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Social History | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books

Emigration & Immigration | Administrative Law | Law | Subjects | Books

Emigration & Immigration | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

General | Social Sciences | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

African American | Other Practices | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Nonfiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Religion & Spirituality | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
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ASIN: 0807856517
Release Date: 2007-01-17

Book Description

Between 1900 and the 1970s, twenty million southerners migrated north and west. Weaving together for the first time the histories of these black and white migrants, James Gregory traces their paths and experiences in a comprehensive new study that demonstrates how this regional diaspora reshaped America by "southernizing" communities and transforming important cultural and political institutions.

Challenging the image of the migrants as helpless and poor, Gregory shows how both black and white southerners used their new surroundings to become agents of change. Combining personal stories with cultural, political, and demographic analysis, he argues that the migrants helped create both the modern civil rights movement and modern conservatism. They spurred changes in American religion, notably modern evangelical Protestantism, and in popular culture, including the development of blues, jazz, and country music.

In a sweeping account that pioneers new understandings of the impact of mass migrations, Gregory recasts the history of twentieth-century America. He demonstrates that the southern diaspora was crucial to transformations in the relationship between American regions, in the politics of race and class, and in the roles of religion, the media, and culture.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent look in population shift.......2007-07-27

This was required reading for a graduate course in American history.

In his book The Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America, author James N. Gregory proceeds thematically, rather than chronologically. His intent is to use a stereoscopic method (stereoscopes set two similar but different images next to each other, thus tricking the eyes and the brain into fusing the images in a way that makes them three dimensional) in order to achieve a third dimension (page 8): not only to examine the great internal movements of black and white peoples from the American South to the American North and West, but also to examine the social, cultural, economic, and political impact that this massive internal movement of peoples had on the history of America during the twentieth century.

Gregory's The Southern Diaspora is divided into nine chapters: Chapter 1, "A Century of Migration," is an overview of the of the migration cycles and the changing economics and demography of these migrations over the course of the twentieth century, concluding that the Southern Diaspora was numerically larger than previous scholars have understood; Chapter 2, "Migration Stories," surveys the public meanings of the two sets of exoduses and highlights the unique role that media institutions and social scientists played in shaping the expectations and interactions of southerners on the move; Chapter 3, "Success and Failure," answers questions about the economic experience of black and white southerners, dismantling the maladjustment paradigm that had been so prominent in previous scholarship while also showing the critical differences in the opportunity structure facing black and white southern migrants; Chapter 4,
"The Black Metropolis," examines the communities that African Americans built in the major cities, resurrecting the label "Black Metropolis" and mapping the new and powerful cultural apparatus of those communities; Chapter 5, "Uptown and Beyond," examines the very different community formations of white southerners who spread out through suburbs and rural areas as well as big cities, struggled with confusing issues of social identity, and developed cultural institutions of historical import (e.g., diaspora country music and the white diaspora literary community would help to reshape understandings of both region and race); Chapter 6. "Gospel Highways," explores the diaspora's impact on American religion as both racial groups built Baptist and Pentecostal churches and helped to revitalize and spread evangelical Protestantism, with important political as well as religious implications for America; Chapter 7, "Leveraging Civil Rights," develops the issue of black political influence, demonstrating how important geography was to the initial phases of what ultimately became the civil rights movement;
Chapter 8, "Re-figuring Conservatism," brings the white migrants into the story of race, class, and regional transformations, exploring contributions to white working class conservatism on the one hand, and to new formulations of white liberalism on the other. Chapter 9, "Great
Migrations," brings te diaspora to a close in the 1970s and 1980s, and summarized some of Gregory's major findings (pages 8 and 9).

One important point made by Gregory is that for as long as there was something called the American South, southerners in significant numbers had been leaving; the South itself expanded through migration as white southerners in the early 1800s carved out new states for cotton and
slavery, while others moved to places north and west that today are understood to be regionally separate from the South. White out-migration was especially heavy in the two decades after the Civil War, with many leaving for farming opportunities and others settling in the North's big
cities-New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago-where the nation's commerce was concentrated. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were more than 1 million southern-born whites living outside their birth region. Census takers also counted more than 335,000 southern born African Americans living in the North and West in 1900 (page 12).

African Americans had left the South in the nineteenth century for different reasons and in different directions. Before the Civil War, some had been taken west by slaveholders who dared to move their human property into places like California and Kansas; others had escaped
northward, typically to Ohio, upstate New York, Massachusetts, and Canada. There was also something of an exodus of free black people from the South after 1830, with many of them settling in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. Emancipation increased out-migration among black southerners, much of it directed toward northern cities (New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago were key destinations for freed people from Virginia and Maryland after the Civil War), but rural destinations were also and equally important: black southern migration, frequently organized by "colonization" or "emigration" societies, moved north into Indiana and west into Kansas from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee in the 1870s and 1880s (pages 12 and 13).

The central thesis of Gregory's Southern Diaspora: How the Great Migrations of Black and White Southerners Transformed America, is threefold. First, the size of the black and white southern diaspora was much more substantial than previously reported: over the course of the
twentieth century, close to 8 million black southerners, nearly 20 million white southerners, and more than 1 million southern-born Latinos participated in the diaspora (page 14). Second, the twentieth century southern diaspora can be divided into two periods: the first phase of migration . starts during the initial decade of the century, grows in the second decade when at least 1.3 million southerners leave home, reaches a peak in the 1920s with 2 million new black and white southern migrants, then tapers off in the 1930s; a much bigger second wave begins with World
War II when more than 4 million southerners move north or west, grows even larger in the 1950s when at least 4.3 million leave the South, remains near that level through the 1960s and 1970s, and then declines in the 1980s and 1990s (pages 14 and 15). Third, white southern out-migrants
outnumbered black southern out-migrants during every decade of the twentieth century, and usually by a large margin. But the southern black exodus had the more important impact: blacks were leaving the South at much higher rates than whites, and many were going to geographic
regions that had known little racial diversity (pages 15 and 17). The largest number of black migrants lived in the Great Lakes states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin); they were also the key destination for white southerners. The Middle Atlantic states (New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) were second as a destination for African Americans, but-with the exception of New York City-much less popular with whites. The Pacific states was the third important area of settlement for both groups, especially California: by 1970, more than 1.6
million white and 571,000 black southerners lived in that state. California was also the chief destination for Tejanos and other southern-born Latinos, 213,000 of whom had settled there by 1970; Hispanic southerners had also migrated to Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana (pages 18 and 19).

Gregory challenges the image that southern migrants in the north and west were merely helpless and poor. While they faced many cultural, social, and economic challenges from within and without their culture, these migrants also had a substantial support system of family relations, organizations, and institutions that enabled them not just to survive, but even to thrive and succeed in differing environments despite tremendous odds. Financially, the majority of southern migrants did much better than their contemporaries who chose to remain in the South.

Whites and blacks left the South for related but somewhat different reasons, and found very different opportunities in the North and West. Those differences turned on the central issue of race, and from that flowed other significant differences derived from geography, class dynamics, and community formation patterns. Racial privilege granted southern white migrants significant economic and spatial advantages (i.e., the choice of where, how, and with whom they settled) over their black counterparts; that advantage was used to choose the best housing they could afford in the least dense neighborhoods, often in outlying, rather than central, urban areas. The fact that black and white southerners settled in different sorts of places, in different
concentrations would have implications not just on southern individual and group experiences, but on the North, the West, and the nation as a whole. Despite the fact that white migrants had greater numbers, black migrants gained capacities to influence cultural and political institutions that would ultimately dictate profound historical changes; The fact that whites chose dispersion over concentration, and opted for places that initially would not be centers of political and cultural power, worked against the construction of physically defined southern white communities. The loyalties and activities of elites and middle-class migrants became a key resource for African American communities, while white, middle class expatriates kept their distance from working class migrants, limiting the possibilities for group institution building and political influence. White southern migrants were influential in the promotion of evangelical churches, the development and spread of country music, and in the particular brand of racial conservatism and white working class politics that benefited from southern white symbolism.
African American influence was more comprehensive and consequential: the building of communities in the major cities in America during a period when those cities monopolized important forms of power, especially in media (publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, record companies, theatre, and film), inspired African American literature and artistic endeavors in a myriad of forms and in a slow, but steady and meaningful acknowledgement of its worth. Politically, the particular arrangement of parties, unions, and municipal and federal governments in northern metropolises, especially during the "long New Deal," gave black voters and activists opportunities to leverage governmental power. By working with allies that were available only in those places, by finding balance-of-power openings that appeared as urban regimes reorganized (and as the northern democratic Party tried to consolidate its hold on federal power)-while using tactics that were safe and effective only in those settings-the seams of power were loosened in a governmental system that previously had rarely responded to the demands of socially despised minorities (pages 325-327). Finally, regional reconstruction was the other
important legacy of the Southern Diaspora. Over time, black and white migrants southernized aspects of the regions they settled by introducing tastes, practices, and institutions-including food, music, religion, accents, and political styles-that moderated the differences between the
South and the rest of the United States (page 327).

In my opinion, Gregory has successfully presented a thematic history of the black and white disapora from the American South to points North and West. The only weakness, as I see it, is that this examination could not have been made in a more chronological, and less thematic fashion. Or given the daunting nature of his effort, if the had been more satisfied to provide a more intensive examination of only one or only several of his intended themes, the work would not give this reader a sense of being "all over the place." Nevertheless, Gregory has contributed a
necessary work of revisionist history of scholastic depth and eminent readability.

Recommended reading for anyone interested in American history.

harder experiences for blacks than for whites.......2007-06-24

By now, several historians have looked at the experiences in the massive migrations of Negroes from the American South to its northern cities from 1900 to the post World War 2 era. But of course, many poor southern whites also voted with their feet and moved north. The unifying theme Gregory has chosen is to look at both migrations. And to compare and contrast the experiences of both groups.

For studying whites, he goes beyond looking at the so-called hillbilly ghettos that sprang up in various northern cities. In the popular (white northern) imagination of the times, these were considered well nigh akin to the often neighbouring black ghettos. Gregory points out that most southern whites had quite different experiences, though they were still invariably stereotyped by white northerners.

We see examples of blacks and whites struggling to improve themselves. Often politically. While there were indeed many common facets, what persistently emerges is that blacks had to work harder to overcome obstacles.

Required for class.......2007-02-10

This book was required reading by a professor. His superior intellect decided this was a good book so I am compelled to agree... even if I didn't read it.

Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture)

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FORCED ARGUMENTS
Who Were America's First Freedom Fighters?
A must read for anyone even attempting to study the era.
great read

Forced Founders: Indians, Debtors, Slaves, and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia (Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture)
Woody Holton
Manufacturer: The University of North Carolina Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0807847844
Release Date: 1999-07-05

Book Description

In this provocative reinterpretation of one of the best-known events in American history, Woody Holton shows that when Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other elite Virginians joined their peers from other colonies in declaring independence from Britain, they acted partly in response to grassroots rebellions against their own rule.

The Virginia gentry's efforts to shape London's imperial policy were thwarted by British merchants and by a coalition of Indian nations. In 1774, elite Virginians suspended trade with Britain in order to pressure Parliament and, at the same time, to save restive Virginia debtors from a terrible recession. The boycott and the growing imperial conflict led to rebellions by enslaved Virginians, Indians, and tobacco farmers. By the spring of 1776 the gentry believed the only way to regain control of the common people was to take Virginia out of the British Empire.

Forced Founders uses the new social history to shed light on a classic political question: why did the owners of vast plantations, viewed by many of their contemporaries as aristocrats, start a revolution? As Holton's fast-paced narrative unfolds, the old story of patriot versus loyalist becomes decidedly more complex.

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Forced Founders review.......2007-07-06

Woody Holton, in his book Forced Founders Indians, Debtors, Slaves and the Making of the American Revolution in Virginia argues that Americans weaned on the stories of the Virginia elite, who for ideological purposes decided a revolution was needed, are misinformed. Desperation was the true reason that Virginia, and the likes of Jefferson and Washington and the other privileged gentry, moved towards declaring independence from British rule. Their desperation was in response to growing pressures placed on the gentry class by other segments of society. Forced Founders is divided into four parts covering three time periods. The first two parts cover the time period that is essentially the decade after the Great War for Empire, from 1763-1774. The third part covers the years 1774-1775. The fourth and final part covers the year of 1776. In all four parts Holton looks at the Virginia elite and their relations to various parties during that time period. The two parts Holton breaks the first time period down into are the problems that the gentry faced, and the solutions they came up with for those problems.
In Holton's thesis, he states "that the Independence movement was powerfully influenced by British merchants and three groups...Indians, farmers and slaves." (206) Holton uses letters and papers from contemporaries of the time. He also uses secondary sources to fill in the gaps. These sources he uses to good effect. Unfortunately, he only scratches the surface of the pressure these groups placed on the gentry class. One weakness of his research is that he has not found new sources,
but uses existing sources of the gentry class, to explain their relation to the other classes. Even though Holton acknowledges the bias of the elite, he says he was able to get the other groups' perspective. (xxi) While Holton's goal is to show that the revolution was not just a tax revolt, but also a class conflict (206), the book focuses mainly on the economic reasons that these groups were able to affect Virginia's elite society. This focus changes the typical perception that most Americans have of the founding fathers; it makes them seem less principled and god like. They are more identifiably human, as they are shown to be looking out for themselves. The examples that Holton uses are supportive of his thesis, but due to the breadth of the issues associated with these groups, his examples only scratch the surface of the importance these groups played. A second problem is that the Virginia gentry are still the primary focus of the book. Those groups that exert pressure on the founding fathers continue to be relegated to the second tier in importance. A better title might have been Virginia's Founding Fathers: The Economic Pressures That Drove Them to Revolution since most parts of the book deal with the economic effects each of the groups had on the Virginia founding fathers. Besides economic concerns, Holton alludes that another reason for the drive to independence was the founding fathers fear of losing their preferred position in society.
I felt that Forced Founders was a good read though it suffered from its brevity. A more in depth look at other pressures besides economic ones placed by these groups on the gentry would have strengthened his thesis. In addition, despite offering a slightly different perspective on the social elite of Virginia, Forced Founders still has them as the primary focus, continuing to foster the second-class status of other groups, thus perpetuating historians' tendency to consign them to its back page.

FORCED ARGUMENTS.......2006-05-02

While the book is a "good read" and "thought provoking," I have serious contentions with Holton's interpretation and analysis on many levels, not the least of which center on his lack of understanding and/or misinterpretation of the military and Indian issues which he attempts to cite as supporting his thesis, and which in turn causes me to question his other conclusions in "Forced Founders."

First, he apparently does not know the difference between the provincial militia of the royal colony, the independent militia formed at the resolution of the First Virginia Convention (and Continental Association after the First Continental Congress), or the Virginia militia as constituted by Virginia's revolutionary government, the Virginia Minutemen (as different from common militia) formed by the state in response to a resolution by the Second Continental Congress, the formation of Virginia State Troops or the establishment of the Virginia Continentals. To him, all those organizational concepts seem to be interchangeable.

Second, it is true that Virginia's last royal governor, John Murray, the Fourth Earl of Dunmore, formed his "Ethiopian Regiment" by offering freedom to the military age male slaves of rebel masters (not all slaves), but Holton's explanation leads the reader to believe that the project was an overwhelming success. The primary source documents show that it was never accepted into Provincial service, and with less than 100 "effective" men present for duty, and about 60 sick on board hospital ships in May 1776, the regiment was disbanded. Furthermore, they were not Dunmore's only available troops. So how their presence forced slaveholders to support the revolution is questionable.

Holton also neglects to mention Dunmore's raising of the Queen's Own Loyal Regiment of Virginia, which was composed of white Loyalists. It too, like the Ethiopian Regiment, never amounted to much and was disbanded in 1776. But Holton doesn't mention them at all!

Third he mentions the battle of Kemp's Landing (a skirmish, actually) in November 1775, in which Dunmore's "army" (not just the black troops) drove Virginia militia from the field. He says nothing about the December 1775 battle (actually a larger skirmish) of Great Bridge that was a decisive American victory and forced the British to evacuate Norfolk (and Virginia until 1780).

Furthermore, Dunmore's army was about 600 strong, including the white Loyalist regiment, all the Loyalist militia he could muster, plus British sailors and marines, as well as the Ethiopian Regiment. Therefore, it is unlikely that the Ethiopian Regiment ever neared full "establishment" strength of 800 men, so I believe Holton overstates their influence. Also, the American force included Continentals, State troops, minutemen from Fauquier, Augusta and Culpepper Counties (from the western part of the Colony), as well as volunteers from Princess Anne and Norfolk Counties, including one company of "gentleman volunteers," and 250 North Carolina men.

Nor does Holton say much about those slaves who chose to stay with their masters, and how their action influenced decisions to support independence.

As for the founder's being forced by fear of the Indians, his argument on that score is also weak.

First, does he consider the Treaty of Camp Charlotte, which Dunmore negotiated with the Shawnee, Mingo and western Delaware nations in October 1774, when they conceded defeat in "Dunmore's War"? After his flight from Williamsburg in June 1775, the terms of that treaty were finalized between Continental and (Revolutionary) Virginia Indian Commissioners and the same Indian nations in the Treaty of Fort Pitt in October 1775. The two treaties essentially kept the peace on Virginia's frontier (including in Kentucky) from 1774 until 1777 (after independence was declared!). So, Holton's claim that fear of the Indians forced the founders into supporting independence seems to be a weak one to me.

Second, Dunmore did plot to solicit the Ohio Indian nations to attack settlements on the Virginia frontier, unless its inhabitants affirmed their loyalty. However, the party of three Provincial officers he dispatched to put the plan into action (led by John Connolly), were captured by Maryland minutemen in the town of Hagers Town (Hagerstown) in November 1775, and Connolly was subsequently imprisoned in Philadelphia. The abortive plot was discovered when incriminating papers were found in Connolly's baggage, which was the source of Jefferson's indictment in the Declaration of Independence that king was "inciting the savages."

Third, Holton apparently also does not understand the operation of the Indian polities. He fails to mention that the Six Nations of Iroquois, who considered the nations in the Ohio country their "dependents" by right of conquest and "spoke for" them, were trying to maintain their neutrality early in the war. After being convinced by the officers of the British Indian Department (operating from Fort Niagara and Fort Detroit, not Virginia) that it was in their best interest to support the king against "the Bostonians," most of the Six Nations (the Onondaga, Cayuga, Mohawk and Seneca) and their "dependents," (Wyandot, western Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo and others) did finally come into the war in early 1777, when they struck backcountry settlements, according to British Indian Department officers, "from Fort Stanwix (at the head of the Mohawk Valley in New York) to the Ohio" and that the American backcountry "From the Susquehanna to the Kiskismenitas Creek upon the Ohio, and from thence down to the Kankawa [Kanawha] River is now nothing but an heap of ashes."

Finally, I don't believe Holton ever makes a convincing argument that tenants exerted influence to force their aristocratic landlords into supporting independence, and his argument about debtors falls short of being conclusive.

Who Were America's First Freedom Fighters?.......2005-05-21

In Forced Founders, Woody Holton writes about five non-elite groups in pre-Revolutionary America who struggled for relief from a long list of economic and political imperial burdens. Small landholders, merchants, debtors and even Native Americans and slaves in Virginia were affected by a global depression in which the price of tobacco had fallen close to its lowest historical levels, prices of other commodities had plummeted and the credit market had collapsed. Elite, wealthy Virginia gentlemen farmers like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry felt the squeeze but for Virginia's non-elites, the confluence of adverse economic factors became an overwhelming millstone. Everyone in Virginia suffered the effects of the Navigation Acts that restricted colonial trade only to Britain. Everyone was forced to adjust to the boycott of Britain passed by the Continental Congress. Virginia's economy staggered when small businesses and landowners defaulted on their debt, faced foreclosure of their assets and sunk into economic ruin. Holton's thesis is that well-to-do colonial Virginia leaders were pushed to choose rebellion against Britain by these non-elite groups whose meager resources made them defenseless against this toxic brew of imperial oppression and negative global economic conditions.

Perhaps the most powerful force behind the fight for independence was the paralyzing debt incurred by Virginia's growers. It was held primarily by their British merchant counterparts who bought their tobacco, sold them supplies and lent them money. The Virginians' debt was even more overwhelming because it landed on their balance sheets during one of the worst recessions of the colonial era. Virginian Arthur Lee wrote in 1764 that American colonists owed British merchants ₤6 million and British mercantilist policies drained an additional ₤500,000 a year from the tobacco colonies. Virginia's small landholders and business people - and no doubt, their counterparts in other colonies - realized British commercial, monetary and immigration policies favored the mercantilist-creditors back in London. Thus it was that debtors in Virginia became unrelenting critics of British policy, making them a persistent political force in favor of independence.

Virginia land speculators thwarted by British governance were another perpetual burr under the saddles of the colony's leadership, not least because of the unrest and threat of attack they created among Native Americans. Although the Indians ultimately lost the commercial, legal and military battles they fought in defense of their land, their efforts through tribal coalitions to enlist British support were irritatingly effective. One of the unintentional results of the Indians' occasional success against the white land speculators was pressure from them on Virginia's leadership. Independence from Britain would permit Virginia land speculators to move against the Indians, unimpeded by imperial interference.

Like all whites in pre-Emancipation America, colonial Virginians considered black Africans a serious threat to their security. Their fear boiled over when Virginia slaves began to negotiate in 1775 for their freedom with British Governor Dunmore in exchange for military assistance to help control civil unrest. White Virginians who'd been independence-neutral or British loyalists became overnight patriots. For them, the only way to restore order, preserve ownership and protect property was to escape British governance and begin a new governmental regime. It was ironic the slaves' ploy for personal freedom frightened Virginia's elites to support the fight for American independence.

Holton guides readers of Forced Founders through an intriguing but occasionally awkward review of the influence of non-elite groups on Virginia's road to Revolution. Its virtue is its point-of-view; its burden is its less-than-focused scope. In the end, it appears he does too little with too much.

However Holton is to be commended for thinking outside the box. He uses primary sources from the gentry to study Virginia's economically and politically important "non-gentlemen" because, says Holton, their records reveal the gentlemen as powerfully influenced by the actions of smallholders, slaves and Native Americans. Working top down and one class removed, he shows the American Revolution was not just a rich man's war. Historians are well-advised to incorporate such 360-degree-point-of-view thinking in all their examination of primary sources. As they pursue this method, however, they must focus their theses and remain alert to the dangers of scope creep.

A must read for anyone even attempting to study the era........2003-08-30

One of the most common misconceptions of Americans today centers around the revolutionary war, specifically the fact that this war was caused by colonist unrest due to excessive taxation, chiefly in Massachusetts. Fortunately, Holton is able to modify this fallacy, as he presents towards massive strife in the Virginia colony that can be linked as a direct cause of the revolutionary war.
By presenting tension between everyone from debtors and creditors to oppressed minorities (slaves and Native Americans) and the Anglo Saxon majority, Holton is able to paint a much more realistic picture of the times. Readers will be shocked by evidence presented; especially notable is the substantiation of rich landowners actually wanting to exterminate the slave trade prior to the war, almost akin to a sumptuary law, to preserve social boundaries. Also notable is the documentation of how close battle came to breaking out in Virginia as a result of Dunmore's actions, far prior to any serious action in Lexington, Concord, or even Boston.
Although this book makes an interesting read in correcting some of the misunderstandings more than two centuries of time have created, it also works well in conjunction with a study of the rest of the war. When Dunmore's actions are viewed as a precursor to those of Cornwallis, Tarleton, and Clinton, an even more worthwhile and in depth study of the era can be begun.
Thus, whether the reader is just has an interest in the time period or is a scholar striving to make connections, Holton's work is an excellent read. One can only hope that Holton or others can help paint a more realistic picture for the other twelve colonies.

great read.......2001-09-01

Ours is an age when we worry about consumer debt (and consumer confidence), terrorists, and an energy crisis. In other words, when we feel our society a little wobbly it is great to read Woody Holton's book and find similar concerns in pre-revolutionary Virginia. Virginians were caught up in a "web" that included a debt crisis, fear of indian raids, slave uprisings, and class struggle. "Although no one can deny their importance [great leaders], the thesis of this book has been that the Independence movement was also powerfully influenced by British merchants and by three groups that today would be called grassroots: Indians, farmers, and slaves." (p. 206)How we relate to Holton's thesis probably depends on how we feel present day worries influence voting (thinking) patterns.
While the specific subject of this book is pressures that resulted in revolution, the facts presented here could be used to make a wider case about the "web" that every generation finds itself in. What will our consumer crisis, energy shortage, fear of terrorists lead to?
Holton writes well and is to be commended for his presentation.

Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies

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Mercer is the man (if I remember correctly).

Welcome to the Jungle: New Positions in Black Cultural Studies
Kobena Mercer
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0415906350

Book Description

Welcome to the Jungle brings a black British perspective to the critical reading of a wide range of cultural texts, events and experiences arising from volatile transformations in the politics of ethnicity, sexuality and "race" during the 1980s. The ten essays collected here examine forms of cultural expression in black film, photography and visual art exerging with a new generation of black British artists, and interprets this prolific creativity within a sociological framework that reveals fresh perspectives on the bewildering complexity of identity and diversity in an era of postmodernity. Kobena Mercer documents a wealth of insights opened up by the overlapping of Asian, African and Caribbean cultures that constitute Black Britain as a unique domain of diaspora.

As a result of the turbulent displacements of the 1980s, new forms of hybrid identity came out of the margins while others were progressively de-centered. Looking at the United States and Britain as societies of the black diaspora, ambiguous manifestations of this dynamic are critically examined across a variety of surfaces from Michael Jackson's ethnic androgyny to the cut`n'mix profusion of post-essentialist sensibility expressed in the medium of black hairstyles.

Customer Reviews:

Mercer is the man (if I remember correctly)........2004-06-02

Both professors and students quote hooks, Hall, and Bhabha all the time, yet few refer to Mercer's work. I find this to be such a wasted opportunity. In this collection, he writes on diverse topics such as Robert Mapplethorpe, black hair, Michael Jackson, etc. I saw him once in person and he kinda reminds me of a black George Michael. This was strong cultural studies that I think many black thinkers and gay thinkers (and when I say "thinkers" that includes "paper writers) should find useful. I don't agree with all of his conclusions. Still, there is so much here that would make any paper in cultural criticism look very well informed. My only question for the author would be: "When are readers going to get more great works of yours like this out there?!"

The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York

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Paranoia, Panic, and Pain!

The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York
Mat Johnson
Manufacturer: Bloomsbury USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The Importance of Being Dangerous
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$You Only Get Better: The Perfect Life\Three For The Road\This Time Around$ You Only Get Better: The Perfect Life\Three For The Road\This Time Around
Iola Leroy (Black Women Writers Series)

ASIN: 1582340994
Release Date: 2007-01-23

Book Description

In 1741, New York City was thrown into an uproar when a sixteen-year-old white woman, an indentured servant named Mary Burton, testified that she was privy to a monstrous conspiracy against the white people of Manhattan. Promised her freedom by authorities if she would only uncover the plot, Mary reported that the black men of the city were planning to burn New York City to the ground. As the courts ensnared more and more suspects and violence swept the city, 154 black New Yorkers were jailed, 14 were burned alive, 18 were hanged, and more than 100 simply “disappeared”; four whites wound up being executed and 24 imprisoned. Even as the madness escalated, however, officials started to realize that Mary Burton might not be telling the truth.

Expertly written by the acclaimed author of Drop and Hunting in Harlem, The Great Negro Plot is a brilliant reconstruction of a little-known moment in American history whose echoes still reverberate today.

Customer Reviews:

Paranoia, Panic, and Pain!.......2007-02-19

Mat Johnson delves into an embryonic era of Colonial American history with his latest offering, The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York. The non-fictional title implies a stoic tome, but surprisingly the author infuses a fresh voice and contemporary observations into the telling of fateful events that occurred some 266 years ago.

The recipe for this 1741 episode of madness is a combination of several ill-timed events: a rumor of arson among townsfolk based on the frequency and strategic pattern of "random" fires erupting throughout the city; a recently discovered thievery ring headed by a none-too-swift white tavern owner, John Hughson, who is "knowingly friendly" with slaves; and a haunting memory of a 1712 Slave Revolt where slaves used burning buildings as bait to lure the Caucasian members of the fire brigade into a fatal ambush. When Hughson is arrested, his imaginative teen-aged "spinster" housemaid, Mary Burton, becomes witness for the prosecution.

Fueled by both an unjust, flawed legal system and racist paranoia, Burton's testimony is heavily tainted by the prosecution and seals the fate of many innocent people, the overwhelming majority who were slaves. The "trial" was huge. Likened in popularity to the modern-day O.J. Simpson murder case, it lasted for months energized by the anticipated public executions (which also served as a form of entertainment) held expeditiously after sentencing. The madness finally subdues when Mary Burton misses her cue and implies that members of New York's elite society were involved. Coincidentally, it is about the same time that white slave owners grew weary of their most prized and expensive possessions (slaves) being withheld from work and destroyed at the expense of their purse, shrinking profit-margins, and public amusement. In the end, 154 slaves and freedmen were jailed, 14 burned alive, 18 hanged and 100 disappeared. Of the whites involved, 24 were imprisoned and four were executed; Hughson, his wife, a known prostitute (who also was "knowingly friendly" with slaves), and an estranged newcomer.

Using actual court documents and the court recorder diaries, Johnson reconstructs a detailed time line against a realistic backdrop cleverly inserting the social mores, political climate, customs, traditions and mindset of the day. It was eye-opening to learn how largely uneducated the masses were and how slaves during this period of time were highly skilled craftsman as opposed to unskilled manual laborers. At opportune moments, the author blends history with modern events, an example being the 1991 discovery of the African Burial ground in Manhattan, and points out where history has indeed repeated itself in years following 1741. Although it is quite obvious how things would end, Johnson's storytelling nonetheless kept me turning pages. History buffs will enjoy this read.

Reviewed by Phyllis
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David Rattray's Guide Book to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields

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David Rattray's Guidebook to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields
Probably close as I ever get to South Africa

David Rattray's Guide Book to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields
David Rattray , and Adrian Greaves
Manufacturer: Pen and Sword
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0850529220

Book Description

David Rattray is known to many thousands of enthusiasts for his emotional and evocative lectures, he also owns a top battlefield-touring lodge Fugitive Drift, close to Iswandlwana and Rorke's Drift. This is David Rattray's first publication (his cassettes and videos have sold thousands) . No one is better qualified to explain the causes of this strange colonial war when British Imperial might was initially humiliated in a ghastly slaughter. Pride was somewhat salvaged by the heroic defense of Rorke's Drift and thereafter the Zulus were doomed. Today the battlefields are frequently visited and this attractive book is the perfect companion, being both authoritative, well illustrated and highly accessible.

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David Rattray's Guidebook to the Anglo-Zulu War Battlefields.......2004-01-22

Read the book, see the film, but if you can go and visit the battlefields in the company of David Rattray and his team.

The guidebook is a well written, easily digested and comprehensive guide to this corner of South Africa, by the author, who is extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the subject, having lived so close to two of the sites of major engagements, Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift, and who also owns and runs the Fugitives Drift Lodge. For those with only a short time to devote to seeing some of the sites the book is essential reading, the descriptions and directions to the sites being particularly useful. The illustrations and photographs are also useful especially in knowing exactly what one should be looking for at particular sites, in view of the sometimes overgrown and obscure nature of the locations.

The historical facts are well explained, giving the reader a good introduction as to why this conflict came about and on the major players in the campaign. A gripping narrative as to the conduct of each battle makes the book difficult to put down and readers would be advised to start the book earlier in the day rather than later!

Together with the guidebook a battlefield tour in David's company is guaranteed to make the visit come alive, his passion for the land and the Zulu people is obvious, the talks making it feel as if you were there on the day, especially on this 125th anniversary of the battles of Isandlwana and Rorkes Drift.

It is highly recommended from one who only recently purchased a copy, and was then lucky enough to visit South Africa, all within three weeks.

David Fuller
22 January 2004

Probably close as I ever get to South Africa.......2004-01-15

I actually brought the book for modern photos and illstrations since I figured that I would never get to see these places in person. However, the book proves to be an excellent reference material as well. Its pretty clear that David Rattray knows his material and how to present them. Combination of great photos (b/w and color), excellent illstrations, maps and well written narrative, this book actually covered all aspects of the Zulu War. There are tons of information packed in this short book. This book appears to be a history book in disguised as a tour guide book. Can't get any closer to South Africa unless you were there already.

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