Yankin' and Liftin' Their Whole Lives: A Mississippi River Commercial Fisherman (Shawnee Books)

Book Description

Using narrative, monologues, and seventy black-and-white photographs, photojournalist Richard Younker examines the life and culture of what is perhaps the last generation of people to make their living as commercial fishermen on the Mississippi River, Junnie Putman and his family and friends.

Younker delves into and illustrates every aspect of Putman's life: how he works, what he does to relax, how he interacts with family and friends. He shows how Putman fished, divulging some of the secrets of the professional fisherman. Examining this fisherman's life—as well as the lives of his relatives and friends—Younker demonstrates Putman's skill as colorful storyteller with a rich vocabulary. Putman proved forthright when expressing his views about life, river lore, and the changing ecology.

These fishermen (who supplement their incomes by hunting and trapping) have various and vigorous encounters with the law, some confrontational, some clever. They also live dangerous lives, working hard, playing hard. And they are quick to fight. Younker photographs and writes about this side of their lives, too.

In each chapter, Younker narrates an aspect of the life and work of Junnie Putman and his family and friends followed byYounker's own black-and-white photographs that help tell the story. Introducing each photograph is a monologue in which Putman or one of his relatives either recounts the history of the family that settled in Bellevue, Iowa, in 1862 or explains the methods and dangers of a specific job.

Although he spent parts of nine years documenting Junnie Putman and his family, Younker condenses his observations into a single year. He shows, for example, how fishing techniques change with the seasons. Putman uses hoop nets in the spring, trotlines in the summer, trammel nets in the fall, seines in the open water in late fall, and seines under the water in winter.

In Yankin' and Liftin' Their Whole Lives, Younker presents the richness of a vanishing way of life and the intricacies of its labors. He gives Junnie Putman and his friends the opportunity to speak for themselves. And he shows a culture in decline, demonstrating that descent through Putman's failing health, his death, and the townspeople's reminiscences of his life following the funeral.

Customer Reviews:

A good book about an interesting family........2004-04-01

Younker did a wonderful job with this book. It's so interesting reading it, and knowing that I am a part of that family. (My husband is Jon Putman, son of Richard Putman, Bellevue. I think it's a good and interesting read for anyone whether interested in commercial fishing or not.

Commercial Fishing On The Mississippi is a Lifestyle.......2000-12-01

A native of Bellevue Iowa I realized how great this book was at captivating the real truth about what commercial fishing is about. I think this is a great book for anyone who is wanting to know more about the lives of people who Commercial fish. It isn't just a hobby, It affects the whole family. The book doesn't just talk about commercial fishing though. There is something in this book for everyone wanting to know more about growing up in a small town in Iowa. It talks about the commercial fishermans family and how they grew up. I recommend this book to anyone interested in small towns and fishing. I give this book Five stars!

The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered

Average customer rating:

It captured the peoples dreams and hopes for equality.

The Mule Train: A Journey of Hope Remembered
Roland L. Freeman
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

The Mule Train, about 150 people in twenty mule-drawn wagons from Marks, Mississippi, was determined to make the nation aware of the plight of America's poor. The Mule Train is commemorated in this collection of photographs by Roland Freeman and others accompanied by excerpts from local and national newspapers.

Customer Reviews:

It captured the peoples dreams and hopes for equality........1998-10-28

I was impressed at the magnificent way that this book brought to light the struggle and dreams of the Mule Train participants. Their beleifs that what was transpiring would make a difference, not just for them, but for all of America. The committment of Mr. Willie Bolden, tasked with the responsibility to see that all went well. His determination and others that dispite several roadblocks insured all travelers were taken care of. The reporting by Jean Pond-Smith showed the realness of this movement without being bias or prejudicial. Her capture of the spirit of the travelers were enligntening and heartwrenching. This book brought home to me many memories that I had long ago moved to the back of mind. That I, along with with mother and three of my sisters were a part of this moment in history.

Average customer rating:

A successful black community
BLACK MIDDLE CLASS LIFE UNDER JIM CROW IN THE DEEP SOUTH...

Separate, but Equal
Shawn Wilson , Clifton L. Taulbert , and Mary Panzer
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Separate, But Equal: The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson

ASIN: 158648236X
Release Date: 2004-04-27

Book Description

An extraordinary photographic record of life under segregation, now with a new cover and special price to mark the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

As the nation reflects on the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling against "separate, but equal," this remarkable book of photographs reveals the realities of segregated life for urban blacks in the South. Henry Clay Anderson established Anderson Photo Service in Greenville, Mississippi in 1948. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, he photographed this relatively prosperous black community, recording the daily lives of the men and women who built the schools, churches, and hospitals that served their segregated society. His photographs of subjects ranging from family gatherings to nightclub musicians have strong political overtones.

In his accompanying essay, writer Clifton Taulbert guides us through the photographs, recalling his own memories of Greenville. The book also contains an interview with the late photographer and an essay on the political climate at the time. Together, these materials create a window into a world that has been overlooked in the aftermath of the civil rights movement--a community of prosperous, optimistic black Southerners who considered themselves first-class Americans despite living in a deeply segregated world.

Customer Reviews:

A successful black community.......2004-10-05

During the middle of the twentieth century, American black and white people lived in separate communities by law. White people never entered black areas while black people only entered white areas if they were employed as butlers or maids. This segregation created many impoverished black ghettos but there were a few black communities that prospered and this book is about one of them, in Greenville, in the American state of Mississippi.

The inspiration for - and focus of - the book is the collection of photographs by Henry Clay Anderson who died in 1998, a few months after selling that collection to Shawn Wilson. These photographs show successful black people going about their normal lives at school, at home, at weddings and a variety of other everyday situations as well as photographs taken in a studio. Most of these photographs would be unremarkable if they were of white people, but because most photographs of black people are of the poor and oppressed, these photographs may come as a revelation to some.

Supporting text by Clifton L. Taulbert, who remembers the area from his childhood (he was raised in a nearby community), explains what Greenville was like during the period in which these photographs were taken. Greenville is not one of America's more famous locations. I only recognize the name because it is mentioned in a song that I know well - Mississippi, by the Dutch pop group, Pussycat. As this book is about a particular period in Greenville's history, I (and I'm sure many readers of this book) would have appreciated the inclusion of a chapter about Greenville's history and culture to set this book in context, explaining what it was like before the period covered and hw things have changed since. In its absence, I have to drop the book (otherwise easily worth five stars), to four stars.

Another chapter is devoted to the rise of the civil rights movement and the murder of the Reverend Gus Lee, accompanied by some dramatic photographs that are not typical of the rest of the book, which set out to portray the good aspects of black people's lives. However, bad things happen to everybody and it was necessary to cover this episode in the book.

This book, despite the murder, shows that black people can be very successful. It's the kind of book that shouldn't be necessary and it's a sad reflection on society that it was felt necessary to publish this book.

BLACK MIDDLE CLASS LIFE UNDER JIM CROW IN THE DEEP SOUTH..........2004-06-01

Henry Clay Anderson was a black school teacher and minister who, courtesy of the G. I. Bill, studied photography and became a professional photographer. In 1948, he established his own business, Anderson Photo Service, in Greenville, Mississippi, where he lived. For more than forty years, he would photograph moments in the lives of Greenville's black middle class community, forever freezing in time images of a rich life that paralleled those of their white counterparts in the Jim Crow South, separate but equal.

The book has one hundred and thirty of his photographs, memorializing a time long past but one that continues to haunt America today. Clifton L. Taulbert, who was raised in Mississippi in a town not far from Greenville and is the noted author of the book, "Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored", writes a poignant and moving essay in remembrance of the black denizens of Greenville, grounding the photographs in the context of the times out of which they arose. It is as if it were a walk down memory lane.

Mary Panzer, curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., writes an essay that details Mr. Anderson's photographic involvement in the early civil rights movement, when he agreed to go travel to Belzoni, Mississippi in 1955. Belzoni had been the scene of the grisly shooting of Rev. Gus Lee, a black civil rights activist who had been involved in voter registration efforts. Mr. Anderson's photographs memorialized the shooting and its aftermath, appearing in magazines such as "Jet" and "Ebony", which were well known in the black community. Ms. Panzer grounds his photographs in the political context of the time, which affirm Mr. Anderson's political commitment.

Book Description

Between September 3 and 11, 2005, photographer Larry Towell, accompanied by Southern novelist Ace Atkins, traveled along the coast of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi, documenting the dramatic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Towell's are not loud news pictures, but haunting and poetic landscapes-many of them -panoramas-as well as photographs that depict the lives of ordinary people amidst the devastation. It is an intimate, documentary record of the hurricane's impact and a tribute to human endurance. For his afterword, Ace Atkins revisits the scenes of Towell's photographs nine months on, reflecting on how the communities of the coast have been able to rebuild their lives.

The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative (The American South Series)

Average customer rating:

Very educational look at the Till tragedy
This is an excellent reader, not a narrative
I Take it Back
Money, Mississippi
Not the best out there

The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative (The American South Series)

Manufacturer: University of Virginia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0813921228

Book Description

At 2:00 A.M. on August 28, 1955, fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, visiting from Chicago, was abducted from his great-uncle's cabin in Money, Mississippi, and never seen alive again. When his battered and bloated corpse floated to the surface of the Tallahatchie River three days later and two local white men were arrested for his murder, young Till's death was primed to become the spark that set off the civil rights movement.

With a collection of more than one hundred documents spanning almost half a century, Christopher Metress retells Till's story in a unique and daring way. Juxtaposing news accounts and investigative journalism with memoirs, poetry, and fiction, this documentary narrative not only includes material by such prominent figures as Hodding Carter, Chester Himes, Eleanor Roosevelt, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Eldridge Cleaver, Bob Dylan, John Edgar Wideman, Lewis Nordan, and Michael Eric Dyson, but it also contains several previously unpublished works--among them a newly discovered Langston Hughes poem--and a generous selection of hard-to-find documents never before collected.

Exploring the means by which historical events become part of the collective social memory, The Lynching of Emmett Till is both an anthology that tells an important story and a narrative about how we come to terms with key moments in history.

Customer Reviews:

Very educational look at the Till tragedy.......2006-10-04

The Emmett Till story is one of the most unpleasant and gruesome in American history, but this book is one of the best I've read on the subject. It is a compilation of contemporary news articles, poems, songs, essays, and remembrances of the Till case (one is a 1955 interview with Mrs. Mamie Till, Emmett's mom). The side of the bigots is also given, as well as a disgusting interview with one of the murderers, but it helps the book to become a more complete anthology showing the sickness of the murderers (and others who thought like them) as well as the good guys in the case.

As a historian, I'll admit that this does not make pleasant reading, but it is a fascinating look at what racism could cause and is a worthy read.

This is an excellent reader, not a narrative.......2005-02-22

This is an excellent collection of documents relating to the lynching of Emmett Till. However, it should be noted that Metress does not provide any real commentary on the documents which he has selected. This is a good book for those interested in writing on the Till or the southern press, and for those with the background knowledge to put the documents presented in a contextual backgound.

I Take it Back.......2003-08-11

Earlier I gave a lukewarm review of this book. In hindsight, the book just was not what I expected. I expected a more narrative history and was disappointed when I did not get it. But that was not the author's intent. What is done here, is done exceptionally well. Truly fascinating. I'm so glad I picked it back up so I can correct the record.

Money, Mississippi.......2003-06-20

Some might say the 1950s should provide the history, while we in the 21st century provide the analysis -- particularly in matters of race, where the discourse of fifty years ago might be thought too embryonic to add anything to today's sophisticated discussions. Think again. More than half the pages of Chris Metress's `The Lynching of Emmett Till' are devoted to writings contemporary with the famous case. These pieces display not only the passion and immediacy you would expect -- and which are invaluable for the modern reader -- but also great shrewdness, subtlety, and eloquence, as they report on what one writer calls a "total, unavenged obliteration." (Not every contributor is sympathetic to Till, by the way; just one example is an announcement from the American Anti-Communist Militia claiming that Till is alive and well in California!)

The rest of the book, made up of pieces written in the years since, shows how the Till tragedy has lingered in the American imagination and conscience. Metress collects remarkable meditations on the Till case by Anne Moody, John Edgar Wideman, Langston Hughes, among others. It is quite incredible how Till has loomed in these writers' thoughts. (The book even includes a really awful - and, fortunately, disowned -- song by Bob Dylan.)

Metress's commentary fully situates the reader in all the various contexts but is never overbearing. This is a book of voices; Metress is a superb listener.

Not the best out there.......2003-05-13

I was not impressed. What I thought would be a thorough treatment of Till's lynching was instead a collection of others' work. So many different points of view makes it impossible to read as a narrative or as history. Interesting, yes, and the book has its place as a source of accounts written at the time of the murder and trial, but other books do a better job of presenting a complete account. If you get this book as a companion piece to other works, do yourself a favor and skip the author's commentary.

Separate, But Equal: The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson

Average customer rating:

A successful black community
BLACK MIDDLE CLASS LIFE IN THE DEEP SOUTH PRE-CIVIL RIGHTS.
My Hometown in Print
Not Found in any History Books
An Unexplored History

Separate, But Equal: The Mississippi Photographs of Henry Clay Anderson
Clifton L. Taulbert , and Mary Panzer
Manufacturer: PublicAffairs
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Separate, but Equal

ASIN: 1586480928

Book Description

An extraordinary treasure: Rediscovered photographs document a proud community of middle-class Southern blacks at the dawn of the civil rights movement.

Henry Clay Anderson established Anderson Photo Service in Greenville, Mississippi in 1948. Throughout the 50s and 60s, he photographed this relatively prosperous black community, recording the daily lives of the men and women who built the schools, churches, and hospitals that served their segregated society. He photographed family gatherings, weddings, funerals, and events at the high school. He photographed nightclub musicians, itinerant entertainers, and a wide range of professionals at work. His mission had strong political overtones. But this rich archive of photographs would have been destroyed and forgotten had it not been for Shawn Wilson, a young filmmaker, whose search for his own family photographs led him to Anderson's studio.

The 95 photographs contained in this book are art objects, but they are also historical documents. In his accompanying essay, writer Clifton Taulbert guides us through them, recalling his own memories of Greenville. The book also contains an interview with the late photographer and an essay on the political climate at the time. Together, these materials create a window into a world that has been overlooked in the aftermath of the civil rights movement--a community of prosperous, optimistic black Southerners who considered themselves first-class Americans despite living in a deeply segregated world.

Customer Reviews:

A successful black community.......2004-10-24

BLACK MIDDLE CLASS LIFE IN THE DEEP SOUTH PRE-CIVIL RIGHTS. .......2004-09-14

This book is a moving pictorial testament to the daily life of middle class blacks in the deep South in the time of Jim Crow, as well as on the cusp of the civil rights movement. It is a slice of black life with which most whites at the time were unfamiliar, as most photo-journalists chose to capture the more sensational types of images in the black community.

Henry Clay Anderson was a black school teacher and minister who, courtesy of the G. I. Bill, studied photography and became a professional photographer. In 1948, he established his own business, Anderson Photo Service, in Greenville, Mississippi, where he lived. For more than forty years, he would photograph moments in the lives of Greenville's black middle class community, forever freezing in time images of a rich life that paralleled those of their white counterparts in the Jim Crow South, separate but equal.

The book has one hundred and thirty of his photographs, memorializing a time long past but one that continues to haunt America today. Clifton L. Taulbert, who was raised in Mississippi in a town not far from Greenville and is the noted author of the book, "Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored", writes a poignant and moving essay in remembrance of the black denizens of Greenville, grounding the photographs in the context of the times out of which they arose. It is as if it were a walk down memory lane.

Mary Panzer, curator of photographs at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., writes an essay that details Mr. Anderson's photographic involvement in the early civil rights movement, when he agreed to go travel to Belzoni, Mississippi in 1955. Belzoni had been the scene of the grisly shooting of Rev. Gus Lee, a black civil rights activist who had been involved in voter registration efforts. Mr. Anderson's photographs memorialized the shooting and its aftermath, appearing in magazines such as "Jet" and "Ebony", which were well known in the black community. Ms. Panzer grounds his photographs in the political context of the time, which affirm Mr. Anderson's political commitment.

There are also two essays in Mr. Anderson's own words that are culled from two interviews conducted by Daisy Greene for the Washington County Oral History Project and by Shawn Wilson, in whom the idea for this book germinated. The book is a loving tribute to Henry Clay Anderson. His legacy of photographic images will delight and haunt those who look at them, seeing in them not only America's past but its future. This is simply a beautiful book.

My Hometown in Print.......2002-11-29

I am a Greenville native who just sat down and shared this book with my mother who still lives in Greenville, Mississippi. She remembers the photographer and we both knew people mentioned in the book and some of the people in the pictures. It is a great depiction of early Black life in the Delta and tells a compelling story of the photographer,
Mr. Anderson. It shows that not all black Mississippians in the early days were cottonpickers living on plantations. The town of Greenville has a rich history, this book gives a minor glimpse of it. I wish the photo index had of had exact names of the people in them, that would have made it even more personal and touching.

Not Found in any History Books.......2002-11-22

These photographs show proud and dignified human beings living in a culture that once really existed in America (believe it or not). You will not find pictures of people being chased by dogs or being subdued with fire hoses. You will not find pictures of lynchings or cross-burnings...

An Unexplored History.......2002-11-21

Separate But Equal is a unique gem. A combination of historic photographs and personal essays, it chronicles the lives of an African American working middle-class living in the Mississippi Delta during the years of segregation.

H.C. Anderson snapped the deceptively simple but beautiful photographs, and they are a revelation. Through the lens of his camera, he documented a segregated but proud society aspiring to its own version of the "American dream." Anderson provides us a personal glimpse into the lives of children and families celebrating special events - beauty contests, weddings, proms, birthday parties - and they are truly dressed for the occasion!
One of the more striking photographs depicts a mid-wife who has just helped deliver a baby in a family home. The bedroom floor is covered in newspaper, as the new mother looks on from her bed, covered by a clean crisp white sheet. Although the photographs primarily focus on the every day lives of their subjects, there are also powerful photographs documenting the burgeoning civil rights movement, and a grim reminder of the fate suffered by some individuals who chose to play an active role.

The essays accompanying the photographs provide insight into Greenville's history. As seen through the wide-eyed amazement of a child, noted writer Clifton L. Taulbert paints a vivid picture of his youthful visits to the prosperous and magical Greenville, the "Queen City of the Delta." Taulbert along with Shawn Wilson provides the reader with a fascinating insider's view of the process involved in bringing this book to print. In a personal and touching essay, Wilson reflects on how the search for an old photograph of his mother, long since deceased, led him back home to Greenville and Mr. Anderson. It was there in Anderson's now defunct photography studio, that Wilson discovered the wealth of photographs comprising Anderson's life long work. Reluctant but trusting, the aging Anderson handed over his photographs so that Wilson might share them with the world. In doing so, we have the opportunity to view images of a rarely explored segment of society, one that combines both the struggle AND celebration of life during the period of Southern segregation.

Book Description

From northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River runs its course along the borders of ten states and cleanly bisects the nation. But the Mississippi is more than an imposing natural landmark; it is embedded in every facet of America's national identity.

Stephen E. Ambrose, renowned author of Undaunted Courage, historian Douglas G. Brinkley, author of The Unfinished Presidency, and award-winning National Geographic photographer Sam Abell traveled the entire length of the Mississippi—from its mouth at Delacroix Island, Louisiana, to its source at Itasca, Minnesota—to bring readers the full, rich history of AmericaIs great river. In 11 chapters, each covering a length of the river, readers will witness the early explorations of DeSoto and the momentous signing of the Louisiana Purchase; they will meet Jim Bowie, Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert Johnson; they will relive the Civil War and the Great Flood, the Underground Railroad and the Trail of Tears; and they will discover the immense impact of the Mississippi on American arts, from the birth of the Blues to the literature of Mark Twain and T.S. Eliot. To expand the book's visual dimension, each chapter of The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation is illustrated with period paintings, lithographs, artifacts, and maps, and features unique photographic essays by Sam Abell.

The result is a lively, comprehensive, and beautiful work that panoramically explores and celebrates the American icon that is the Mighty Mississippi as it celebrates America itself.

Customer Reviews:

Missing parts.......2003-07-17

I was disappointed that the accomplishments and contributions of French, Spanish, Swedish, German, etc., ethnic groups to the Mississippi story was not told. I think the book gave excellent coverage of the contributions of the black ethnic groups that I was unaware. Is this a 'politically correct' version of the Mississippi story?

Average customer rating:

Some Notes on River Country
Eudora Welty
Manufacturer: University Press of Mississippi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Average customer rating:

Treasure Hidden 35 Years

Faces of Freedom Summer

Manufacturer: University Alabama Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Letters from Mississippi

ASIN: 0817310568

Customer Reviews:

Treasure Hidden 35 Years.......2001-01-25

Only five of the 1800 photos from which these were selected had been printed before. The photographer had put them away, after spending a summer in Mississippi, with a Whitney grant. As an artist, the time had never been ripe to look at them again. This is the only record of a single town in the midst of the Civil Rights revolution in America. It is the record of the largest project in Mississippi, which was overlooked and unpublicised at the time, probably for reasons of personal conflict & sexism. It is also a moment in the civil rights revolution preserved with the sensibilities of a participant, who is African-American & American Indian. It is a loving but never sentimental look at the people of the town in the midst of change, and of the young white college students & middle-aged, middle class African-American professionals who volunteered their services in aid of that revolutionary movement. One bookseller has called the introduction to the photographs "the best I have ever read." It is a good introductory history for the majority of this country who were born after that time. And it is a very beautiful book.

Average customer rating:

A good read
More Politically Correct Revisionism

Mississippi: A Documentary History

Manufacturer: University Press of Mississippi
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1578068436

Book Description

In America's collective imagination, Mississippi, a state that aptly may be described as the most southern place in America, is often deemed a sinister, forbidding landscape. While popular conceptions of other states are evoked by rosy likenesses chosen by promoters of tourism, the mere word Mississippi too often conjures thoughts of brutality, repression, and backwardness. To many outsiders, Mississippi's controversial history continues to resonate in the present.

By allowing divergent historical voices to describe their understanding of events as they were unfolding, this new book of narrative history supports, emends, and even complicates such a vision of Mississippi's past and present. The only book ever to present Mississippi's story in a chronological documentary fashion, it includes a wide variety of public records, newspaper articles, academic papers, correspondence, ordinances, constitutional amendments, journal entries, and other documents.

Although many of these documents are well known, many also have never been seen since their inception. In juxtaposition they offer a striking portrait. The parts and the whole alike show that Mississippi remains ever controversial, ever puzzling, ever fascinating.

Customer Reviews:

A good read.......2006-08-23

I found Bradley G. Bond's documentary to be very much in line with other accounts I've read concerning the history of my home state. Some facts, many facts, are ugly to look at but he presented them without bias, in my opinion. But even he acknowledged that bias is unavoidable due to the unavoidable requirement to decide which material to include and which material to exclude. Some might be angry at some of the material he included regarding our recent state flag debate or references to how bad we lag the nation in education. But we should be angry at that - because it is true.

I found the book to be an interesting read and even learned some things about the state I've lived in for over forty years. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in learning more about Mississippi.

More Politically Correct Revisionism.......2004-12-26

As I started to peruse this book which my dear wife had purchased as a Christmas present for me, I saw one section with quotes from Ted Rall in which the author describes Rall as "sardonic and biting"

I knew I was in trouble already. Rall is a lot more than just sardonic and biting. He is a first class South-hater and America basher who is too far left to even be on the roster at The Nation or Mother Jones.

Bond has devoted 80% of the book to struggles over race and with the expected PC structuring.

On the recent flag vote, no mention that 40% of blacks voted to keep the old flag.

He treats Reconstruction as an idyllic period and Radical Republicans as saints and no mention of carpetbaggers or scalawags or the disenfranchisement of many whites during that period nor the election of in some cases puppet illiterate blacks.

Nor is any time devoted to the state's current climate of declining urban areas and rampant black crime that is more commonly found in Soweto or Kingston. "Freedom" has not evolved as a thing of beauty. It is much more complicated than that. Many whites and middle class blacks live in fear from the crime epidemic and many young blacks have a hostility to whites that used to be only found up North.

Also, no mention of the extortion racket that has consumed the state recently with the trial lawyers and the ready pool of willing jurors. That is a story unto itself. Nothing...nada...no mention.

This book is just more southern whitey as the bogeyman gobbledygook. Same old same old.

Charles Byrd
Ole Miss Poli Sci 1980
7th generation Mississippi
Descended from Big Tom Raspberry Byrd and Pappy Tom Sullivan amongst others of note.

PS: This author "don't know diddly".

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