Scottsboro And Its Legacy

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Remembering Scottsboro

Author : James A. Miller
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400833221
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (8 download)

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Book Synopsis Remembering Scottsboro by : James A. Miller

Download or read book Remembering Scottsboro written by James A. Miller and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in the United States continues to haunt the nation’s racial psyche In 1931, nine black youths were charged with raping two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama. Despite meager and contradictory evidence, all nine were found guilty and eight of the defendants were sentenced to death—making Scottsboro one of the worst travesties of justice to take place in the post-Reconstruction South. Remembering Scottsboro explores how this case has embedded itself into the fabric of American memory and become a lens for perceptions of race, class, sexual politics, and justice. James Miller draws upon the archives of the Communist International and NAACP, contemporary journalistic accounts, as well as poetry, drama, fiction, and film, to document the impact of Scottsboro on American culture. The book reveals how the Communist Party, NAACP, and media shaped early images of Scottsboro; looks at how the case influenced authors including Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, and Harper Lee; shows how politicians and Hollywood filmmakers invoked the case in the ensuing decades; and examines the defiant, sensitive, and savvy correspondence of Haywood Patterson—one of the accused, who fled the Alabama justice system. Miller considers how Scottsboro persists as a point of reference in contemporary American life and suggests that the Civil Rights movement begins much earlier than the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. Remembering Scottsboro demonstrates how one compelling, provocative, and tragic case still haunts the American racial imagination.

Scottsboro and Its Legacy

Author : James R. Acker
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313081441
Total Pages : 281 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (13 download)

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Book Synopsis Scottsboro and Its Legacy by : James R. Acker

Download or read book Scottsboro and Its Legacy written by James R. Acker and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-11-30 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nine black teenagers were accused of raping two white women on a train in 1931 in northern Alabama. They were arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death in the town of Scottsboro in little more than two weeks. The Scottsboro Boys case rapidly captured public attention and became a lightning rod for fundamental issues of social justice including racial discrimination, class oppression, and legal fairness. Involving years of appeals, the Scottsboro trials resulted in two landmark U.S. Supreme Court rulings and were a vortex for the sometimes-competing interests of the American Communist Party, the NAACP, and the young men themselves. The cases resulted in a damning portrayal of southern justice and corresponding social mores in several national and international media outlets, and in a spirited defense of the judicial system and prevailing cultural norms in other news reports, particularly in the South. Here, Acker details the alleged crimes, their legal aftermath, and their immediate and enduring social significance as evidenced in media portrayals and other forms of popular culture. Using extensive media reports, including contemporaneous newspaper accounts and interpretations of the proceedings, as well as the sallies of champions of various organizations and social causes, the author illustrates the role of the media in the cases and the effect the cases had on society at the time. In addition to tracing the history of the cases and their media portrayal, the book explores the legacy of the Scottsboro trials and appeals. It examines several issues relevant to the cases that, even today, have enduring significance to law and popular perceptions of justice, including capital punishment, racial discrimination, innocence, the composition and functioning of trial juries, the quality of legal counsel for indigents, evidentiary issues in rape cases, and media interactions with the courts. More than a true crime tale, this book takes readers through the crime but also illustrates its enduring legacy.

Scottsboro

Author : Dan T. Carter
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 0807135232
Total Pages : 528 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (71 download)

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Book Synopsis Scottsboro by : Dan T. Carter

Download or read book Scottsboro written by Dan T. Carter and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 528 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scottsboro tells the riveting story of one of this country's most famous and controversial court cases and a tragic and revealing chapter in the history of the American South. In 1931, two white girls claimed they were savagely raped by nine young black men aboard a freight train moving across northeastern Alabama. The young men-ranging in age from twelve to nineteen-were quickly tried, and eight were sentenced to death. The age of the defendants, the stunning rapidity of their trials, and the harsh sentences they received sparked waves of protest and attracted national attention during the 1930s. Originally published in 1970,Scottsboro triggered a new interest in the case, sparking two film documentaries, several Hollywood docudramas, two autobiographies, and numerous popular and scholarly articles on the case. In his new introduction, Dan T. Carter looks back more than thirty-five years after he first wrote about the case, asking what we have learned that is new about it and what relevance the story of Scottsboro still has in the twenty-first century.

The Scottsboro Boys

Author : Duchess Harris
Publisher : ABDO
ISBN 13 : 1532170610
Total Pages : 51 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (321 download)

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Book Synopsis The Scottsboro Boys by : Duchess Harris

Download or read book The Scottsboro Boys written by Duchess Harris and published by ABDO. This book was released on 2018-12-15 with total page 51 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1931, nine black teenagers were arrested in Alabama. The young men were accused of crimes they did not commit, including rape. This unjust arrest led to years of imprisonment and trials for the young men, who were known as the Scottsboro Boys. The Scottsboro Boys examines their legacy and how their trials shaped the criminal justice system. Aligned to Common Core Standards and correlated to state standards. Core Library is an imprint of Abdo Publishing, a division of ABDO.

Scottsboro Unmasked

Author : Peggy Allen Towns
Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 : 1546226486
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (462 download)

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Book Synopsis Scottsboro Unmasked by : Peggy Allen Towns

Download or read book Scottsboro Unmasked written by Peggy Allen Towns and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2018-02-20 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is the picture of inequality? Is it race, gender, ethnicity, age, or place? Time and time again, our American history gives us the answer to that age-old question. In 1933, attorney Samuel Leibowitz argued that it was disparity in the jury pool and the innocence of nine. Sadly, the horrible malignancy of racism continues to exist and is the primary root of many prejudices and inequalities in our country today. This powerful historical narrative paints an amazing picture of the color line and the incredible bravery of people who took a stand for justice. The author resurrects the voices and the infamous case of the Scottsboro Nine. Their unmasked stories unfold against the backdrop of an economically depressed town, energized with an inferno of bigotry and violence. This groundbreaking research presents the courage of fearless men who rattled Americas conscience by challenging decades of discrimination and injustices within Alabamas legal system. On the other hand, the book reveals the sentiment of those who embraced the Old Souths ideology of inequality and exclusiveness, which put at risk the lives of nine innocent victims, young men who changed Americas judicial system. Fiat justitia rual coelomthis is Latin for Let justice be done though the heavens may fall. These are words that my grandfather, Judge James E. Horton, learned at his mothers knee. It seems he followed those wise words as he set aside the verdict and death sentence and ordered a new trial for Haywood Patterson. Though his decision cost him the next election, there were never any regrets. John Temple Graves, a Birmingham columnist, wrote of him, He does the right thing as he sees it, with no particular sense of the scene about him, but with an enormous sense of right-doing, ancestors gone and example-bound descendants to come. His social conscience is vertical rather than horizontal. We are the beneficiaries of his vertical conscience and I hope we will all strive to live by his example (Kathy Horton Garrett, Judge Hortons granddaughter).

The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words

Author : Kwando M. Kinshasa
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476603448
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words by : Kwando M. Kinshasa

Download or read book The Scottsboro Boys in Their Own Words written by Kwando M. Kinshasa and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2014-01-23 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a collection of letters written by the nine African American defendants in the infamous March 1931 Scottsboro, Alabama, rape case. Though most of the defendants were barely literate and all were teenagers when incarcerated, over the course of almost two decades in prison they learned the rudiments of effective letter writing and in doing so forcefully expressed a wide range of perspectives on the falsity of the charges against them as their incarceration became a cause celebre both in the United States and internationally. Central to this book is the chronologically structured presentation of letters (1931-1950), including some correspondence from attorneys and members of Scottsboro support committees. The original grammar, syntax and vernacular of the defendants are maintained in a desire to preserve the authenticity of these letters.

Red, Black, White

Author : Mary Stanton
Publisher : University of Georgia Press
ISBN 13 : 0820356158
Total Pages : 230 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (23 download)

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Book Synopsis Red, Black, White by : Mary Stanton

Download or read book Red, Black, White written by Mary Stanton and published by University of Georgia Press. This book was released on 2019-11-15 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Red, Black, White is the first narrative history of the American communist movement in the South since Robin D. G. Kelley's groundbreaking Hammer and Hoe and the first to explore its key figures and actions beyond the 1930s. Written from the perspective of the district 17 (CPUSA) Reds who worked primarily in Alabama, it acquaints a new generation with the impact of the Great Depression on postwar black and white, young and old, urban and rural Americans. After the Scottsboro story broke on March 25, 1931, it was open season for old-fashioned lynchings, legal (courtroom) lynchings, and mob murder. In Alabama alone, twenty black men were known to have been murdered, and countless others, women included, were beaten, disabled, jailed, “disappeared,” or had their lives otherwise ruined between March 1931 and September 1935. In this collective biography, Mary Stanton—a noted chronicler of the left and of social justice movements in the South—explores the resources available to Depression-era Reds before the advent of the New Deal or the modern civil rights movement. What emerges from this narrative is a meaningful criterion by which to evaluate the Reds’ accomplishments. Through seven cases of the CPUSA (district 17) activity in the South, Stanton covers tortured notions of loyalty and betrayal, the cult of white southern womanhood, Christianity in all its iterations, and the scapegoating of African Americans, Jews, and communists. Yet this still is a story of how these groups fought back, and fought together, for social justice and change in a fractured region.

To Kill a Mockingbird

Author : Harper Lee
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 0062368680
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (623 download)

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Book Synopsis To Kill a Mockingbird by : Harper Lee

Download or read book To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-07-08 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Voted America's Best-Loved Novel in PBS's The Great American Read Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning masterwork of honor and injustice in the deep South—and the heroism of one man in the face of blind and violent hatred One of the most cherished stories of all time, To Kill a Mockingbird has been translated into more than forty languages, sold more than forty million copies worldwide, served as the basis for an enormously popular motion picture, and was voted one of the best novels of the twentieth century by librarians across the country. A gripping, heart-wrenching, and wholly remarkable tale of coming-of-age in a South poisoned by virulent prejudice, it views a world of great beauty and savage inequities through the eyes of a young girl, as her father—a crusading local lawyer—risks everything to defend a black man unjustly accused of a terrible crime.

Alabama Justice

Author : Steven P. Brown
Publisher : University Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817320709
Total Pages : 277 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis Alabama Justice by : Steven P. Brown

Download or read book Alabama Justice written by Steven P. Brown and published by University Alabama Press. This book was released on 2020-10-06 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WINNER OF THE ANNE B. & JAMES B. MCMILLAN PRIZE IN SOUTHERN HISTORY Examines the legacies of eight momentous US Supreme Court decisions that have their origins in Alabama legal disputes Unknown to many, Alabama has played a remarkable role in a number of Supreme Court rulings that continue to touch the lives of every American. In Alabama Justice: The Cases and Faces That Changed a Nation, Steven P. Brown has identified eight landmark cases that deal with religion, voting rights, libel, gender discrimination, and other issues, all originating from legal disputes in Alabama. Written in a concise and accessible manner, each case law chapter begins with the circumstances that created the dispute. Brown then provides historical and constitutional background for the issue followed by a review of the path of litigation. Excerpts from the Court’s ruling in the case are also presented, along with a brief account of the aftermath and significance of the decision. The First Amendment (New York Times v. Sullivan), racial redistricting (Gomillion v. Lightfoot), the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment (Frontiero v. Richardson), and prayer in public schools (Wallace v. Jaffree) are among the pivotal issues stamped indelibly by disputes with their origins in Alabama legal, political, and cultural landscapes. By examining such landmark twentieth-century milestones and eras such as the Scottsboro Boys trial, the Civil Rights movement, and the fight for women’s rights through a legal lens, Brown sheds new and unexpected light on the ways that events in Alabama have shaped the nation. In addition to his analysis of cases, Brown discusses the three associate Supreme Court justices from Alabama to the Supreme Court: John McKinley, John Archibald Campbell, and Hugo Black. Their cumulative influence on constitutional interpretation, the institution of the Court, and the day-to-day rights and liberties enjoyed by every American is impossible to measure. A closing chapter examines the careers and contributions of these three Alabamians.

The Politics of Rage

Author : Dan T. Carter
Publisher : LSU Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807125977
Total Pages : 604 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (259 download)

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Book Synopsis The Politics of Rage by : Dan T. Carter

Download or read book The Politics of Rage written by Dan T. Carter and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2000-02-01 with total page 604 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining biography with regional and national history, Dan T. Carter chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of George Wallace, a populist who abandoned his ideals to become a national symbol of racism, and later begged for forgiveness. In The Politics of Rage, Carter argues persuasively that the four-time Alabama governor and four-time presidential candidate helped to establish the conservative political movement that put Ronald Reagan in the White House in 1980 and gave Newt Gingrich and the Republicans control of Congress in 1994. In this second edition, Carter updates Wallace’s story with a look at the politician’s death and the nation’s reaction to it and gives a summary of his own sense of the legacy of “the most important loser in twentieth-century American politics.”

Riot and Remembrance

Author : James S. Hirsch
Publisher : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN 13 : 9780618340767
Total Pages : 390 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (47 download)

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Book Synopsis Riot and Remembrance by : James S. Hirsch

Download or read book Riot and Remembrance written by James S. Hirsch and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2002 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A buried part of history comes to light in this informative account of the Black Wall Street Massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1921"--

1865 Alabama

Author : Christopher Lyle McIlwain
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817319530
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis 1865 Alabama by : Christopher Lyle McIlwain

Download or read book 1865 Alabama written by Christopher Lyle McIlwain and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A detailed history of a vitally important year in Alabama history The year 1865 is critically important to an accurate understanding of Alabama's present. In 1865 Alabama: From Civil War to Uncivil Peace Christopher Lyle McIlwain Sr. examines the end of the Civil War and the early days of Reconstruction in the state and details what he interprets as strategic failures of Alabama's political leadership. The actions, and inactions, of Alabamians during those twelve months caused many self-inflicted wounds that haunted them for the next century. McIlwain recounts a history of missed opportunities that had substantial and reverberating consequences. He focuses on four factors: the immediate and unconditional emancipation of the slaves, the destruction of Alabama's remaining industrial economy, significant broadening of northern support for suffrage rights for the freedmen, and an acute and lengthy postwar shortage of investment capital. Each element proves critically important in understanding how present-day Alabama was forged. Relevant events outside Alabama are woven into the narrative, including McIlwain's controversial argument regarding the effect of Lincoln's assassination. Most historians assume that Lincoln favored black suffrage and that he would have led the fight to impose that on the South. But he made it clear to his cabinet members that granting suffrage rights was a matter to be decided by the southern states, not the federal government. Thus, according to McIlwain, if Lincoln had lived, black suffrage would not have been the issue it became in Alabama. McIlwain provides a sifting analysis of what really happened in Alabama in 1865 and why it happened--debunking in the process the myth that Alabama's problems were unnecessarily brought on by the North. The overarching theme demonstrates that Alabama's postwar problems were of its own making. They would have been quite avoidable, he argues, if Alabama's political leadership had been savvier.

Jersey Justice

Author : Cathy D. Knepper
Publisher : Rutgers University Press
ISBN 13 : 0813552079
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (135 download)

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Book Synopsis Jersey Justice by : Cathy D. Knepper

Download or read book Jersey Justice written by Cathy D. Knepper and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2011-09-15 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The case of the Trenton Six attracted international attention in its time (1948–1952) and was once known as the “northern Scottsboro Boys case.” Yet, there is no memory of it. The shame of racism evident in the case has been nearly erased from the public record. Now, historian Cathy D. Knepper takes us back to the courtroom to make us aware of this shocking chapter in American history. Jersey Justice: The Story of the Trenton Six begins in 1948 when William Horner, an elderly junk dealer, was murdered in his downtown Trenton shop. Over a two-week period, six local African American men were arrested and charged with collectively killing Horner. Violating every rule in the book, the Trenton police held the six men in incommunicado detention, without warrants, and threatened them until they confessed. At the end of the trial the all-white jury sentenced the six men to die in the electric chair. That might have been the end of the story were it not for the tireless efforts of Bessie Mitchell, the sister of one of the accused men. Undaunted by the refusal of the NAACP and the ACLU to help appeal the conviction of the Trenton Six, Mitchell enlisted the aid of the Civil Rights Congress, ultimately taking the case as far as the New Jersey Supreme Court. Along the way, the Trenton Six garnered the attention and involvement of many prominent activists, politicians, and artists, including Paul Robeson, Thurgood Marshall, Eleanor Roosevelt, Pete Seeger, Arthur Miller, and Albert Einstein. Jersey Justice brings to light a shameful moment in our nation’s history, but it also tells the story of a personal battle for social justice that changed America.

Scottsboro: A Novel

Author : Ellen Feldman
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393068390
Total Pages : 363 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Scottsboro: A Novel by : Ellen Feldman

Download or read book Scottsboro: A Novel written by Ellen Feldman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2008-04-17 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A powerful novel about race, class, sex, and a lie that refused to die. Alabama, 1931. A posse stops a freight train and arrests nine black youths. Their crime: fighting with white boys. Then two white girls emerge from another freight car, and fast as anyone can say Jim Crow, the cry of rape goes up. One of the girls sticks to her story. The other changes her tune, again and again. A young journalist, whose only connection to the incident is her overheated social conscience, fights to save the nine youths from the electric chair, redeem the girl who repents her lie, and make amends for her own past. Intertwining historical actors and fictional characters, stirring racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism into an explosive brew, Scottsboro is a novel of a shocking injustice that convulsed the nation and reverberated around the world, destroyed lives, forged careers, and brought out the worst and the best in the men and women who fought for the cause.

Redefining Rape

Author : Estelle B. Freedman
Publisher : Harvard University Press
ISBN 13 : 0674728491
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Redefining Rape by : Estelle B. Freedman

Download or read book Redefining Rape written by Estelle B. Freedman and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-09-03 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The uproar over "legitimate rape" during the 2012 U.S. elections confirms that rape remains a word in flux, subject to political power and social privilege. Redefining Rape describes the forces that have shaped the meaning of sexual violence in the U.S., through the experiences of accusers, assailants, and advocates for change.

These Rugged Days

Author : John S. Sledge
Publisher : University of Alabama Press
ISBN 13 : 0817319603
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (173 download)

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Book Synopsis These Rugged Days by : John S. Sledge

Download or read book These Rugged Days written by John S. Sledge and published by University of Alabama Press. This book was released on 2017-08-15 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessibly written and dramatic account of Alabama's role in the Civil War. The Civil War has left indelible marks on Alabama's land, culture, economy, and people. Despite its lasting influence, this wrenching story has been too long neglected by historians preoccupied by events elsewhere. In These Rugged Days: Alabama in the Civil War, John S. Sledge provides a long overdue and riveting narrative of Alabama's wartime saga. Focused on the conflict's turning points within the state's borders, this book charts residents' experiences from secession's heady early days to its tumultuous end, when 75,000 blue-coated soldiers were on the move statewide. Sledge details this eventful history using an impressive array of primary and secondary materials, including official records, diaries, newspapers, memoirs, correspondence, sketches, and photographs. He also highlights such colorful personalities as Nathan Bedford Forrest, the "Wizard of the Saddle"; John Pelham, the youthful Jacksonville artillerist who was shipped home in an iron casket with a glass faceplate; Gus Askew, a nine-year-old Barbour County slave who vividly recalled the day the Yankees marched in; and Augusta Jane Evans, the young novelist who was given a gold pen by a daring blockade runner. Sledge offers a refreshing take on Alabama's contributions to the Civil War that will intrigue anyone who is interested in learning more about the state's war efforts. His narrative is a dramatic account that will be enjoyed by lay readers as well as students and scholars of Alabama and the Civil War. These Rugged Days is an enthralling tale of action, courage, pride, and tragedy, making clear the relevance of many of the Civil War's decisive moments for the way Alabamians live today.

A More Perfect Reunion

Author : Calvin Baker
Publisher : Bold Type Books
ISBN 13 : 1568589220
Total Pages : 213 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (685 download)

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Book Synopsis A More Perfect Reunion by : Calvin Baker

Download or read book A More Perfect Reunion written by Calvin Baker and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2020-06-30 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A provocative case for integration as the single most radical, discomfiting idea in America, yet the only enduring solution to the racism that threatens our democracy. Americans have prided ourselves on how far we've come from slavery, lynching, and legal segregation-measuring ourselves by incremental progress instead of by how far we have to go. But fifty years after the last meaningful effort toward civil rights, the US remains overwhelmingly segregated and unjust. Our current solutions -- diversity, representation, and desegregation -- are not enough. As acclaimed writer Calvin Baker argues in this bracing, necessary book, we first need to envision a society no longer defined by the structures of race in order to create one. The only meaningful remedy is integration: the full self-determination and participation of all African-Americans, and all other oppressed groups, in every facet of national life. This is the deepest threat to the racial order and the real goal of civil rights. At once a profound, masterful reading of US history from the colonial era forward and a trenchant critique of the obstacles in our current political and cultural moment, A More Perfect Reunion is also a call to action. As Baker reminds us, we live in a revolutionary democracy. We are one of the best-positioned generations in history to finish that revolution.