I didn’t realize that we had actual account from the slaves of their own escapes from slavery, so this book was a surprise to me.
A slavA Winning Book
I didn’t realize that we had actual account from the slaves of their own escapes from slavery, so this book was a surprise to me.
A slave makes a crate mail himself a free state to an abolishment’s office. He put in a little water and some biscuits and that was all he had for the 26 hours that it would take him to get there. Another slave learns to bark like a dog so he can frighten away his pursuers. Some women dressed as men. Another woman, carrying her baby, jumped across broken up ice on a river to escape.
I believe there are 30 accounts from those who had escaped or had tried to escape. All heart wrenching and eye opening. This is the book that should have won the Pulitzer for what could be more real than that which was real?
Fredrick Douglas’ escape is in this book. Also, the woman who had killed her own child to prevent it from growing up in slavery, is also in it Toni Morrison used her story in her Pulitzer Prize winning book, “Beloved.” I have told myself that I must try to read her book again, as well as do a reread of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
Freedom? The Civil War has just ended, and Mosa, the main character and ex-slave from David’s first book in the series “The Throwback” has been given tFreedom? The Civil War has just ended, and Mosa, the main character and ex-slave from David’s first book in the series “The Throwback” has been given the deed to the plantation. It has been decided though, that it should be divided amongst the 8 family members who had worked it all their lives. Then they begin to make more changes, but the white banker and other white men in the community have other ideas.
I never trust sequels for they usually lack what the first book had given to the reader. This didn’t happen, for the book was as exciting as the first one. The Black characters are wonderful, and well, what can I say about the white save owners that hasn’t been said before? The Blacks did not get the freedom as was promised to them. So Mosa left the plantation and began her adventures traveling to other cities to find work. Perhaps, I think, it was better to have left the plantation and have more experiences in life, but well, no, for the ex-slaves that stayed were turned into sharecroppers, the white man’s way of keeping them in bondage. I think Mosa faired better, but for the Black in generals, life was always a struggle and it continues to this very day.
Frederick Douglas wrote that he believed we could have another Civil War unless the U.S. united, but today we are more ununited as ever. We can’t even get together to fight Covid-19.
I also like how David’s books are hard to put down. I find that there is never a dull moment when reading them. How he does it, I do not know.
“He was on that river at one time, and he sure did his dirty work when he was there, like drowning those two little children up the road,” said Beulah“He was on that river at one time, and he sure did his dirty work when he was there, like drowning those two little children up the road,” said Beulah. “You’re talking about 35, 40, 50 years ago, Beulah…and you ain’t got no proof that he was mixed up in that,” the sheriff said. “Now ain’t that just like white folks. Black people get lynched, get drowned, get shot, guts all hanging out, and here he come up with, ‘ain’t no proof who did it.’ The proof was those two little children laying in them two coffins…And let’s don’t be getting off into that 35, 40, 50 years ago stuff either. It ain’t changed that much around here.”
I bought this book years ago because I loved the cover. Three old men sitting on a bench n front of a building. I thought of my hometown in the 50s when old men would sit on the park benches telling old stories ortalking politics, and just enjoying the outdoors. I wanted to read a story just like that, and I thought I had it. I did not see that the old men on the cover of the book had shotguns in their hands. The mind sees what it wants to see sometimes.
By now, you know that it isn’t a leisurely book to read; instead, it is about the killing of a white man on a Black man’s property. It is about how nothing has changed much over the years. The Black man is always blamed. The date is in the 1970s in Louisiana. Yes, nothing much has changed there over the years, but in some ways it has. Even at this late date, little has changed.
The white man’s tractor is still running but not moving. No one thinks to turn it off for there are more important things to do. The man is on the ground, dead from a shotgun wound. The suspect is Matthew, a Black man who lives in a house on the land. The Blacks know what is coming and make plans. Candy, a Black woman sends out a young man to gather up some old men, as many as he can find. Tell them to bring a 12-gauge shotgun and shells of a certain shot size, like that that were used in the killing. Now I don’t know if this was allCany’s idea or not. It just happened. The young man took off running, stopped at various homes. Some of the men’s wives gave him a hard time. They want no trouble, but their men gather their guns and left.
By now, I am in awe of this author’s writing, even his great dialogues. How did I ever miss reading any of his books? Then I learn that he had written “A Lesson Before Dying.” A book I found to be a powerful, but depressing.
Two and a half hours after the white man had been shot, the sheriff got call and showed up at the scene of the crime. Seventeen men and two women claimed that they murdered the white man, and they all tell their horrible stories of what had happened in the past that caused them to kill him. “I did it,” each said. And while it was not the stories that the white men in my hometown had told white sitting on the park benches, I still loved the book....more
What a strange little girl, I thought, as I laid in bed trying to get to sleep while reading this book. Annie John was obsessed wI’d Rather Be Ironing
What a strange little girl, I thought, as I laid in bed trying to get to sleep while reading this book. Annie John was obsessed with death. She went to funerals of people she diddn’t know and hung out at the cemetery, and I could be exaggerating. Never read a book about death when you are old and trying to sleep. I put the book down . . The next morning, I picked the book up as I thought again, This child is weird. Do kids really , like doing these things? Then I Realized, “I was just as weird. Maybe I didn’t go to funerals, but I visited the graveyard, and I found a bobcat skull, still on the dead bobcat and brought it home. I gave it away to my niece when I was told that I was weird to have it. I have a coyote skull now.
Then she became even more weird. She liked this girl in school, and I believe that she was a lesbian, just coming out, but that is not what made her weird. The red-faced girl that she loved pinched her, and it made her cry. Then the girl kissed her. So, the game began, pinch, cry, and then kiss. How will that be when she grows up? Maybe she will grow out of it as she had graveyards.
And during the time that I was reading this book, I had decided to put the 34” cloth doll that my sister had me in the dryer to get the dust out of it. Having a doll at my age could be considered weird. The doll has a painted face, blonde wool hair, a peasant maroon colored dress with a white apron. I forgot that I had put pin buttons on her bodice years ago, and the next day I found them in the dryer. One of the pins says, “I’d rather be ironing,” and the other, “Ladies against women.” I had gone to a play in Berkeley with some friends to see what I think was called “Ladies against women,” a lesbian play--a comedy. I laughed when I saw those pins and had to have them. And now I found it ironic to be reading a book about a lesbian girl at the same time that I found the buttons…
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One day her mother found her under the porch, crawling around, and when she came out, she had a marble in her hand to give to the red-faced girl. Her mother wanted the rest of her marbles, but she insisted that she didn’t have any, so her mom crawled under the porch to look. And she looked and looked, but she could not find them. All this work by her mother just because Annie was playing with marbles when she should have been doing something else. By now I am thinking that her mom is a little odd. I think she could have spent her time ironing, as it would have been more productive....more
Ever since reading “Mama Day” by Gloria Naylor I have been interested in the Gullah Islands off the East coast of the United States, so when my husbanEver since reading “Mama Day” by Gloria Naylor I have been interested in the Gullah Islands off the East coast of the United States, so when my husband wanted to see the East Coast, I wanted to find a Gullah Island to visit. St Helena Island was the one I chose, and I loved it there, and wrote about it in my review of “The Secret of Gumbo Grove.”
This book contains letters and journal entries of Laura Towne who taught at the Penn School on the island, a school we visited, one where they once taught the freed slaves how to farm, make clothes, shoes, etc.
The problem with letters is, if they are not explained, you end up with more questions than answers, such as the school was built around 1862 or so, or at least that is when Mary went there to teach the “free slaves.” Freed? I thought that they were not freed until 1865. That is the type of confusion I have with these letters. So, while I appreciate her letters, I wish that the author, who put this book together had foot notes. Such as this too: The blacks were paid money for the work they were doing. How much were they paid, and how far did it go? How much food and clothing could they buy? As I continued reading, I figured it out some things, and other things were finally explained in the future letters. Such as, the Yankees had taken over South Carolina, so the Blacks were freed in name only but soon kept getting their freedom papers. Then the Yankees came in and took the able bodied black men off to war.
Their African religion was called “Shouting.” What is “Shouting?” I had to ask Alexa. You get into a circle and stomp your feet and clap your hands. Do they shout? What are its beliefs?
As a result of not always understand this book, I can only remember one anecdote, such as how some military men told a black man that they would let him kill his master who had abused him for fyears, but the black man said that he did not wish him to suffer so would not kill him.
I did not finish this book because the letters began to get vague and tedious, so I quit If one is doing research they would like this book. I have another one up my sleeve though....more
I was hooked the moment I began reading this book, this, for its beautiful, lyrical prose. How did I ever miss reading this authoFor the Love of Money
I was hooked the moment I began reading this book, this, for its beautiful, lyrical prose. How did I ever miss reading this author whose prose kept me going even though I found myself judging a few of the characters for their sexual indiscretions and for the author’s sexually explicit scenes? Then I realized that it was like the flood in Noah’s day where God had destroyed mankind, but in this case, the Mississippi flood of 1927.
Then Emmet Till stepped into the novel, and while I had known of him, I didn’t know his story, a tragic story of cruelty and just as the flood in Noah’s day, unwarranted. His stepping in changed the mood of the book. And when I put the book down, I sat with it for a moment, not thinking. To think could have brought tears and anger over the injustice. Then when that moment was over, I realized that I had read a great novel.
It began in Money, Mississippi along the banks of the Tallahatchie River, with the whites getting the best land, its view, the south side, and the blacks the north. It begins with Coal, a young white boy who fell in love with a beautiful black girl, a love he could not have. It continued on through generations, through marriages and infidelities, and with the death of Ester, who was considered a whore, and whose soul then entered another body, just to cause havoc, just to allow her to feel again.
As it began in Money and went on to Detroit, it came back to Money where it all ended, except for the lives of the ghosts who wandered as they pleased, and who loved as they never could before.
People actually say things like that, which is why James Baldwin had to remind them that he was not “tGarden Club Woman: My Mexican didn’t come today…
People actually say things like that, which is why James Baldwin had to remind them that he was not “their” Negro.
I enjoyed this book, but it is not the one that I really wish to read. I will find the James Baldwin one that I want, but it may take some time. This book was just filled with his quotes, which were all good, but I wanted more.
As to the above quote, I heard a woman say this, and I was dumbfounded. Afterwards I wondered if I could have said to her, “Where can I get MY own Mexican, because I want to own one, too.” But who knows how that would have went over? It may have just gone over her head.
The black man slaved in your fields to put food on your table, but he was not allowed in your restaurants.
The black woman raised your children, even held The black man slaved in your fields to put food on your table, but he was not allowed in your restaurants.
The black woman raised your children, even held them on her lap, but once that child was grown, he would not allow her to even sit next to him on a bus.
You taught the black man to love your white God, to worship and to pray to him, but then he was not allowed to step foot in your churches.
And if he breaks any of these rules Your hate for him will cause you to beat and kill him.
Is it that the white man hates who he had enslaved? Or does he truly just hate himself for what he has done, and then takes that hate out on the black man? But maybe it is neither. Maybe he is just filled with hate.
I had never heard about the Freedom Riders. When young college men and women, black and white, even professors, ministers boarded Greyhound buses headed for the southern states to try to get rid of the Jim Crow laws, I was finishing high school. It was 1961. No one talked about it, not even abut the four men, who a year before, had a |sit-in” at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Caroling. They had sat there for four hours. I do not even have the full story on that powerful moment. I just know that the photo taken of their backs had become famous.
I missed knowing so much during the apolitical period of my life. So, this book was all new to me. It was rough going. At one point during the beatings that the Freedom Riders were enduring, I put the book down and began listening to Keith Whitley sing his songs. When one of his songs came on, one I had never heard before; “Birmingham Turn Around,” I thought it ironic that he was singing about leaving Birmingham on a plane for New Orleans because he wanted to get away from a woman that he loved. Ironic, because I had just finished reading the part in the book where the Freedom Riders needed to get out of Birmingham before they were killed, and the plan was to take a plan to New Orleans.
I went back to the book, but I have to say this: the book is full of horrors as well as being tedious at times. Although, I am no longer apolitical, I still find it hard to read political books. I just base my politics on what is right, and Civil Rights is what is right, as is all human rights....more
I’m going to Kansas City Kansas City here I come. They got some pretty little women there And I’m gonna get me one. ~~Nat King Cole
Set in the fictional bI’m going to Kansas City Kansas City here I come. They got some pretty little women there And I’m gonna get me one. ~~Nat King Cole
Set in the fictional black town of Rattlebone, Kansas near Kansas City, Kansas where a young girl named Irene is growing up. Rattlebone isn a small community, and it is the 1950s. It is a quiet town where there is not much to do. And by quiet, I mean, there are no power mowers, no leaf blowers, and no fast cars, although there are fast boys.
Irene and her friends get together to talk, listen to music, and just do what many kids do, only they do not have computers or other modern contraptions. So, whatelse do they do? I forgot. I know that Irene does not have a dog to play with or take on walks to the river or the hills, not like I did. I doubt if Kansas City has any hills, at least that is how I view it.
So, what happens in this book? Irene is bent on getting an education, wants to go to college, but a boy has other ideas, he wants to make it with her. And her parents want to make it with others, but this is not Peyton Place; it is a story where people are just trying to get by, trying to make things work, make a better life for themselves. A boy drowns, a girl gets pregnant, an airplane crashes in town, and Irene is intent on getting a scholarship.
Her mom and dad fight, he leaves the house for another, but he comes home on Sundays for his wife’s fried chicken and gravy on biscuits. I just made that up, because I forgot what he ate, but that was what most of us ate on Sundays in the 50s. Now, I do not recall if it was on Sundays or if it happened only once. Sounds good. I just thought it odd that he would come home after all he was doing.
Later, her parents start a laundry business, and all I could think about was the steam and heat inside the store. Then her dad moves into the room upstairs, has it all fancied up. Again, I think of the heat and steam that could rise to his room. Would serve him right.
Irene made a new friend and headed over to her neighborhood. Her friend’s parents lived in its basement, and the house’s nameplate said, The Tourist Home, another name for Cat House. Irene checked out the upstairs and saw something she should not have seen, and this, I suppose, is called, growing up. There are worse things to learn in life.
All in all, it was a nice story, a light read, just what I needed....more
I did not want to read a book like this; instead, while I wanted to read a book about the lives of blacks, I wanted one like “MaWhat a Wonderful World
I did not want to read a book like this; instead, while I wanted to read a book about the lives of blacks, I wanted one like “Mama Day” by Gloria Naylor, a fun read, a good life. I loved her book, but most of all, I wanted to believe that her book was mostly true, that their lives were better, were normal. I wanted the Jim Crow Laws behind us, the slavery, and all the cruelty. But I knew that the Jim Crow laws were still here, just that I did not know the complete extent of them, the cruelty of the police, the prison guards. I wanted to believe that it was only a few bad cops that killed the blacks, that harmed them in any way.
It was seven or so years ago when I first got my bubble popped. I was listening to the news, and Trayvon Marten had been killed, but that was only the beginning. I sat in front of our TV month after month, watching the videos that people had produced of the cop killings, my stomach tied in knots. One of my friends said that they were fake videos. I knew better. Now she says that they are true, but that it is only a few bad cops committing these crimes. I wish to believe her, but I do not know if I can.
After reading this book, I thought of my own childhood, how I used to roam the streets of my town, going into stores, never being harassed. And this same friend that I mentioned, Mary, went with me into the Mercantile one day, and we were trying on men’s hats. A male clerk came over and asked us if he could help. I said, “No, we are just trying on hats because I want to buy one for my dad.” He knew better, but he left us alone. I think now, what if we had been black? It was the 50s, small town America. Did the blacks in our town feel safe? I like to think so. I know that I did. I did not worry about the police; they were our “friends.”
I knew Black history; I had taken a class in college. I knew of the Civil Rights Movement. I knew a lot, I thought. I had read a few books on racism, but I wanted to believe that racism was in words only, that blacks were better off now. Then when the killing began, I felt that we needed another Martin Luther King, Jr., even a Malcolm X, but I knew if one arose, he or she might be killed, eventually. Then Black Lives Matter came on the scene, but they seemed to have no leader, and what is a group without a leader? I expected them to go away in a short period of time, but then in the last few months, they were in the headlines where they needed to be, but they were now called “terrorists.”.
Then I found this book, and I devoured it. A woman had founded the group, Patrice, its author. It is her life story, not much of a Gloria Naylor book, not even a story like my own life, but a story that I did not wish to know. I learned that It is not just a few bad cops. It is so much more than that.
Her neighborhood was not my own; it was terrifying, and the blacks are deprived of so much. Their grocery store was a 7-11, their playgrounds were the streets and the alleys. The kids hung out there, and the police would come to look for them, not to look for crimes being committed, but to look to start trouble, to beat them up, to torture them. Is it any wonder that a black man stole a cop’s taser gun and ran with it, knowing what a cop might do to him if he hadn’t? It may have been the only chance that he had to save his own life. He lost it anyway.Then there are the jails and the prisons, not just a place to lock a black person up, but a place where the guards torture them, even hang them.
Do any blacks feel safe in America? No, not really. Are there any good cops? I do not know anymore. Who are the real terrorists? That I do know. How will this all end? I think I know. A few statues will come down, the confederate flag will end up on the lawns of the racists and in their pickup trucks, some names on buildings will be changed from racist ones to more acceptable ones, and the police will be nicer to the blacks on the streets, putting them in their patrol cars and taking them somewhere where they can do their dirty work in secret, and then the politicians will say, “We gave you what you wanted, so why are you still complaining?” And Black Lives Matter will be lucky if they are not all killed....more
He Talked A Lot About Harlem, and It5 Wasn’t Always Good
Eddy spent his childhood years in Harlem and decided to go back to live there, at least for a He Talked A Lot About Harlem, and It5 Wasn’t Always Good
Eddy spent his childhood years in Harlem and decided to go back to live there, at least for a year. He lasted two years, long enough to write about it. Maybe, he stayed too long. He wasn’t in Harlem in its heydays, not unless he was a child, a child who couldn’t remember what it was like when it was glamorous, when it was a haven for blacks, a reprieve from white Americans. His father must have seen it then, because when he came back to his old neighborhood, he stood there and wept. Such are the times in America, seen over and. Over. Decay almost everywhere.
He moved back to Harlem in the 1990s; this book was published in 1997. He tells us what it had meant to those who lived there in its beginnings, and what it is like now. It was the place to be years before his return. Now it was the place to leave, but people stayed, because there was no other place to go when you are too poor to walk away.
Over the years I thought about Harlem, how I wish that I had seen in it in its glamourous years. My sister thought the same, and when she and her daughter went to New York, they took a bus tour to see Harlem. She doesn’t remember the tour, it was nothing. You can’t see Harlem from a bus seat. You can’t see Harlem if you are white like us. You can’t even see it if you are black and just visiting. You need to experience it, and the time to have experienced it is gone.
While living in Berkeley in the 70s, I saw Telegraph Avenue. I experienced it. My friends took me to Haight-Asbury in San Francisco, and we drove its streets. I still wish that I had seen it, but I would have had to have taken the bus there often to spend the day. Still, my own experience would not have been the same as those that had lived it. I was not into living this Hippie dream.
In the 90s, Harlem was no longer Harlem, nor even for the blacks. It was no longer glamourous. Some black cities, even white ones, die from neglect, from crime and poverty. Some black towns died at the hands of the white people, like Tulsa’s Greenwood District that had died in the 20s when the white men burned it down, killing at least 300 blacks, men, women, and children. I can’t help but feel that the white man had a lot to do with Harlem’s demise, too. I blame it on our white, racist government for keeping wages low and jobs few, and for not caring about the black child’s education. The drugs just came to ease the pain; instead they brought hell.
Eddy found a cruddy apartment to rent. Better than most. He did what he had to do to fit in. Put his good clothes in the closet and hoped that the mice didn’t ruin them. He listened to his neighbor’s fight, watched men on the streets beat their women, sell drugs, get into fights with each other and even kill. It is a wonder he lasted as long as he had.
Eddy is a great writer. He is spell binding. But I wanted the glamour. And now, Harlem is being rebuilt, “gentrified.” I ask, is this a good thing? Well, yes, but only if the blacks can afford it. I have my doubts for I have heard of this before, this word, “gentrification,” which really means that a town is now too upscale for the poor to afford. In Tulsa, they did it differently. After burning the Greenwood District down, they eventually tore what was left down, put in a college and a bypass. They are fixing to put in another bypass through another black town just east of Muskogee.
When I was a child we used to go to Fresno, CA for Christmas shop in its big city. Big to me. And then we would drive down Santa Clause Lane. In the mid-90s, my husband and I moved there for work. The downtown was dead, the upscale shops had moved to a mall, and now we only saw stores that sold flea market items, not antiques. Santa Clause Lane was still there in its rich neighborhoods. Our neighbor took me to see a neighborhood that used to be nice, that was before the drugs and the gangs came in and took it over. It looked like it had been bombed, just as Eddy described parts of Harlem. I hated every minute of Fresno. Eddy now hated Harlem, or so it seemed. When my husband’s job ended, we took to the road and headed for Texas but ended up in Mississippi. The last night in Fresno, we had a drive-by shooting. The neighbor kids excitedly showed me bullet shells in the street right near our house. I was glad that we had slept that night on a mattress that was on the floor. We picked up that mat mattress and put it in our gutted-out trailer, waved goodbye to our good neighbors who had gathered on the sidewalks, and left. Eddy had done the same. ...more
I wanted to learn about Beale Street, and the blues, and the lives of the artists that lived there, but tBluesy it Ain’t. “Twas More Like Rap Gone Bad
I wanted to learn about Beale Street, and the blues, and the lives of the artists that lived there, but this book was about a man and a woman who had fallen in love.
When reading the first three pages I saw the corner of a dark room, a home of a black friend’s friend or maybe I knew her too, but I don’t remember who she was, only that we went to the same church.
Across the street from her house there was a white picket fence, and I only knew that I was in Richmond.
And then the image was gone, and I could not get it back. Was it really real, or did my mind make this all up, and if it did, why?
And the book began blasé like that, like an old record that had lost its beat.
But then Baldwin found his Voice when Tish and Fonny made beautiful love, which must have been his own aphrodisiac, because his writing came Alive.
But the sex and the vulgarity were all too much for me, well, maybe it wasn’t the sex but the vulgarity in every definition of the word.
I wanted to put the book away, and I believed that the injustices in their world would ruin their lives forever anyway.
Tish was the woman who loved that man, Foony, who then had a baby by him, a man who was now in prison waiting for his trial. And they really couldn’t afford a lawyer, nor could they afford to live in the Housing Projects, which were horrible anyway, and reminded me of what I had read about tenant housing in New York when immigrants first came to America. Rats, cockroaches. I have known people who lived in houses like this, and whether they rented or owned, that was just how they lived.
I was invited for breakfast one morning by a woman who lived across the street from us in Fresno. I walked into her kitchen and sat down. Under my feet was an indoor/outdoor carpet filled with old dried food, maybe even some fresh; it didn’t matter which, because the smell was enough to make you gag. The filth was everywhere. And on the walls, the counters, and the stove, cockroaches were doing a fearless slow waltz through her kitchen. I sat there eating my breakfast watching it all, and when I finished eating, I returned no more. And she never even realized that her living conditions were deplorable. This book was like that, and you have to have the stomach for it too. Only Tish and Fonny knew that by living in America their lives were deplorable; they knew that much.
Note: Beale Street isn’t in Harlem where the story is set. It is in Memphis, Tennessee, but maybe by bringing the two together Baldwin’s was being artsy or was saying that all black streets were the same.
Tidbit: If Beale Street could talk it would tell you go have lunch at the King’s Palace, because they have the best breaded fried green tomatoes and crab cakes. Then you may wish to go find some blues music, maybe at B.B. King’s. I hear that they serve good food too....more
The injustices that are caused by our system’s disregard for black people continue when they are let out of prison becaPatrick could become a writer.
The injustices that are caused by our system’s disregard for black people continue when they are let out of prison because they are still a felon when released and so have not the ability to get a job, rent a house or an apartment and much more, but this also applies to anyone let out of prison. It is as if they have never done their time; it never ends.
What a powerful book. I read it because I really liked Pat Conroy’s book, “The Water is Wide.” But instead of teaching blacks on a Gullah Island, Michele Kuo taught in the Mississippi Delta in Arkansas.
What I liked about these two books is how both of these teachers learned a way to get kids interested in learning, unique ways. I kept thinking how our colleges are failing in that these skills may not be taught to upcoming teachers. Of course, I understand that not all teachers have the ability or even the desire to influence students in creative ways.
I wonder how many people had teachers that they remember who had left an imprint on their lives? I had one in grammar school, my 8th grade teacher, Mr. Bailey. He kept me interested with his own eclectic interests. He talked about VWs and the future cars; he talked about UFOs and told us ghost stories and so on. When I came home from school I often said to my parents, “Mr. Bailey said…” I know of no teacher in high school that was memorable, but in college I had professors who were at least interesting, especially one, a woman, who believed that I had leadership abilities and wanted me to become the president of the World Government Organization at the college. While I said, No, I at least remember her because of her interest in me, and I enjoyed her humanities class.
I kept thinking, while reading this book, that no matter what you taught the kids they couldn’t rise up because they were in a poverty stricken area, and because they had no money in which to move out of that area.
But I felt that Patrick was a student that really missed opportunities that he could not help, and, like I said, I wish that he could have been able to do more with his life, except for society keeping the felon down, when in fact; he should not have been convicted of a crime that was actually just a misdemeanor.
I think about the beautiful letters that Patrick wrote to his daughter and his mother, much like those in the book ”Gilead” that Michele Luo had him read. Patrick’s poems were really moving too. They could be published. I wish that he would even write about his life, the life of a black man living in the Delta, but then maybe he would think that it has been written by Luo.
I leave you a little of Patrick’s short poem that he wrote in regards to his daughter while in prison:
“Let me imagine that I am there with you when you need me even if a little late.”
A Letter to His Daughter:
Do you remember when me, you and your mother went fishing at Bear Creek? I know you do, you were so happy. And yes, I will take you back there again. Down by the bank where I was sitting you came running, calling, ‘Daddy, look.’ There near some bamboo you showed me some bright pink flowers. They were pink peonies with many petals that you described as more beautiful than a rose. You pulled one and said, “Take this, Daddy,” and I put its stem in my mouth. That made the biggest smile on your face, so I picked you up and kissed your nose with the peony still hanging from my mother…” ...more
What a courageous and fascinating woman. Clara and her family were sold into slavery, each being separated. The family that bought her treated her witWhat a courageous and fascinating woman. Clara and her family were sold into slavery, each being separated. The family that bought her treated her with dignity, as much as a slave can have in such a situation. When she was freed by her master, she wanted to find her only remaining family member, a daughter. She spend many of her years working at a business that she created, a laundry business, saved her money and began searching for her daughter. It is a short but powerful story.
The author has written many pioneer stories in the 99 cent range--short but worthwhile reads. ...more
I read this first when I was taking a black history class in college. I can't even recall what I thought of It back then. Well, yes I do. I remember wI read this first when I was taking a black history class in college. I can't even recall what I thought of It back then. Well, yes I do. I remember wanting him to win. I also remember how sometimes the slaves fed their master's ground glass, and how on the slave ships many lived in their own excretions and many died. I remember how the masters would use thump screws on their slaves in order to cause them pain, and I remember the whippings.
Nat Turner was a slave back in the 1830s and confesses that his master was really good to him, but at one time he actually ran away, stayed hidden for maybe a month and then returned. Just because you have a good master doesn't mean that you don't desire freedom. But what choice did he have except to return? Perhaps, he could have made it to a Northern State to freedom. Maybe not.
He was also a very religious man, a preacher. He believed that he had visions from God, and that God told him that he must take action against the slave owners. So in time he gathered up several other slaves and planned the insurrection.
Early one morning they visited the homes of those nearby. He was finally caught, and his confession of what happened was very grisly. They used axes to kill 57 men, women, and children, mostly women and children. I was horrified when reading the graphic details, and yet I understood why this had happened. Yet, it was morally wrong.
Insurrections were a constant worry for the slave owners, as they always feared that this could happen, and actually, Nat Turner's insurrection wasn't the fist time that it had actually happened.
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” ~~Frederick Douglass ...more
I was reading Amazon's best sellers on my kindle, and saw the title of this book and liked it. Then read what it was about, the Number 1 New York TimeI was reading Amazon's best sellers on my kindle, and saw the title of this book and liked it. Then read what it was about, the Number 1 New York Times Bestseller/ Nation Books Award Winner? NAACP Image award winner, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and the list goes on.
So began reading. I was very tired at the time as it was past my bedtime, but I knew that this was not a bedtime story, nor was this a book to read when you were tired, for this book was special; it was important, and I knew this even from reading the first few pages. It should only be read with alert mind, I thought, so I put it down and began reading it anew in the morning.
I remember another book like this, one that was lyrical as well, where a man was writing to his son too. This book was "Gilead," and the father in this book was a minister who had a heart condition that wouldn't allow him to live much longer, and so wanted his son to know about his own life and about his love for him. But he wasn't black like the man in this book. He was white; he had a privileged life. While he knew that his body was weak and dying, the black man in this book, always knew that he could lose his body at any moment. Life was that fragile for him. He knew this from history, even current history. And this is the story that he tells his son, not just out of love, but to try to protect him somehow and that, too, is love.
But what white parent has to give a long lecture to his son or daughter in order to protect him from the world he lives in, this world where his own life is worth nothing? Does the white person have to tell his child to be better than the other races? In the black man's case, his body is worth nothing, and it really doesn't matter what the parent says to his child because if a police officer wants his life, and society does nothing about it, that life is his.
I remember in the news when a black man in Wal-Mart was shot and killed for carrying an unloaded air gun over his shoulder. He wasn't even pointing it. I remember how his girl friend said later that their lives, their black lives, were worth nothing. How does she go on when knowing this? Maybe it is due to hope; I don't know. I do know that hope doesn't change things, as President Obama ran on hope. I also know that human rights are never given to anyone; they have to be fought for, and that is so hard to understand. Why are they not given freely?
No matter how hard I try I can't understand racism; I can't understand cruelty to others. I have even tried to understand evil but so have others, and they have failed. The author Ron Rosenbaum wrote an article: "Does Evil Exist?" He, too, is trying to understand. Some neuroscientists, he wrote, say that evil is only a "malfunction or malformation in the brain." Evil doesn't exist and neither does free will. So is this why man is cruel, why he kills and hates?
But then again, could racism be due to lack of education? Often it is. But I think of how many of those who are racist in our society are also Christians, and that is part of their education. So does Christianity not provide the right education or are its teachings the problem? Christ only taught Love. But now that I think of it, the Old Testament didn't JUST teach love, it also taught revenge and murder of those not of their faith. It also taught slavery and that it was okay to beat a slave to the inch of his/her life, and they believe this too.
This last year or so, like the author of this book, I watched the news on TV and saw for the first time real killings of blacks by the some of the police in our society. I was horrified. I knew it had been happening for hundreds of years, not just by the police but by other white men, but I didn't realize that it was still happening on such a large scale. At first I was grateful that we now had people with cam recorders that took moving pictures of these killings, because now those police would be punished. There was proof! Solid proof! Time after time I was wrong.
As to the killings of blacks, Ta-nehist Coates blame Americans for allowing it, and he is correct. If we didn't like what we see wouldn't we all do something about it? Why are there so few protestors of any race? But then we, as Americans, don't do much about anything. Even those who are making low wages just accept it and get another job to help them out some. I just don't see a large joining of hands in America that would help solve many issues. It is all done by small pockets of people, and I don't see myself as an activist either, but I can complain.
What Coates says could fill pages, and it has, but what I mean by this is: I have highlighted so much in this book on my kindle that I wouldn't know where to begin, but I will post some of it here, because I have to begin:
"The progress of those Americans... was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history...Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God."
"Police departments of your country have been endowed to destroy your body. It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction. It does not matter if it originates in a misunderstanding. It does not matter if the destruction springs from a foolish policy. Sell cigarettes without the proper authority and your body can be destroyed. Turn into a dark stairwell and you body can be destroyed. The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Mosty they will receive pensions."
"The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority."
"When I was about your age, each day, fully one-third of my brain was concerned with who I was walking to school with, our precise number, the manner of our walk, the number of times I smiled, who or what I smiled at. who offered a pound and who did not--all of which is to say that I practiced the culture of the streets, a culture concerned chiefly with securing the body...I somehow knew that that third of my brain should have been concerned with more beautiful things."...more
Set in St. Helena, S.C. Folk tales and black magic. I found the book to be too boring but the author is an excellent writer, just that folk tales haveSet in St. Helena, S.C. Folk tales and black magic. I found the book to be too boring but the author is an excellent writer, just that folk tales have always bored me. So a 4 star for content and writing, 3 stars due to my own lack of interest....more
I bought this book because my husband and I were going to visit a Gullah Island, St. Helena, and I wanted to read up on the culture. Problem is, this I bought this book because my husband and I were going to visit a Gullah Island, St. Helena, and I wanted to read up on the culture. Problem is, this book is all about black magic--the negative side of magic and nothing really positive. I refuse to believe that that is the entire African culture. But if you like folklore and magic this is the right book for you. I think I need to find something more well rounded and so should have paid more attention to the title. Still, it was a fun read....more
I lived in a brown shingled house on Channing Way in Berkeley with 3 other roommates back in the early 70s. Next door to us, on the second story of anI lived in a brown shingled house on Channing Way in Berkeley with 3 other roommates back in the early 70s. Next door to us, on the second story of an apartment building, lived a young black man. One day when I came home two of my male roommates said that they had something to show me in the kitchen. Spit. The black man next door had purposely spit out his window onto ours. I didn't know if either of the guys in our house had irritated him or if he just didn't like looking at us. In any case, the guys got a big kick out of it; I didn't. Knowing that they wouldn't go out and wash the window, I went outside and washed it.
The following day my roommates told me to look out the window again. This young man had hung a banner out his window, the one facing our kitchen, and on this banner was a picture of Malcolm X with the words Malcolm X written on it. The guys laughed at this also, but to me it was disquieting. Since then I have always thought of this young angry black man whenever Malcolm X's name has been brought up. and I had always thought of Malcolm X as very angry racist, a person to fear.
Here it is years later, and I have decided to learn the real story about Malcolm X. This book put me though a lot of changes. Mostly anger towards his racist views, even if I understood why. Up to a point, the news had been right about him.
The first few chapters of this book tells of his growing up without his dad, and soon his mother was in a mental institution. So, his sister allowed him to move to Harlem with her.
Now, I have always wondered what Harlem was like back then, the jazz scene and how people lived, but I wasn't ready for his kind of life. He had low paying jobs in the beginning, and then began smoking and selling reefers. Next, he went on to cocaine. He partied with the jazz musicians, even sold them dope. Next, he became a pimp, and then did some robberies. Not an interesting life to me, nor even a good read.
He even wore a zoot suit in Harlem, a suit I had seen in a library book in the 60s that was about fashion throughout the centuries. It was the zoot suit that interested me back then:
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Next, he was putting down women, especially married women whose men came to Harlem to visit the prostitutes because their women were domineering, etc. It is always the woman's fault, and as I found with Malcolm, it was the white man's fault for everything too. Then, according to him, women didn't want to be treated nice; they wanted to be treated mean, because, he reasoned,if you don't treat them badly they will leave you. I thought, maybe when you treat them badly, they are afraid to leave. Ever think of that? Or maybe it is because they grew up being mistreated and don't know any better. Ever thought to treat them better? And what woman would leave Malcolm X for threating them good? After all, he was famous.
So by now I was getting sick of this book, but I wanted to educate myself about him since I only knew what I had heard on the news in the 60s, so I read on.
In the next phase of his life, he was imprisoned for committing robberies. The best thing he did in prison was read for they had a lot of good books, according to him. It was also in prison where he became a convert of the Nation of Islam--a black Muslim group that had its beginnings in America.
The Nation of Islam had taught him that the white man was the "blue-eyed devil," and then he kept repeating, throughout the book, all of the sins of the white people had committed; he painted with a large brush. Much of it was true, but I thought of the book "Mein Kampf" and its ugliness. I thought of Donald Trump. I thought of quitting this book.
Then he began talking about how brainwashed the black men are due to the white man's teachings, yet he doesn't seem to realize thatthis form of the Muslim religion was also brainwashing him, giving him half truths.
The last three chapters took a turn for the better. Malcolm X went to Mecca, and when he returned he was a changed man for he had been told that the Nation of Islam didn't teach the true Muslim faith, for the true Muslim faith loved all races.
When he was in Makkah, he wrote a letter to his loyal assistants in Harlem:
"Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and overwhelming spirit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all colors and races here in this ancient Holy Land, the home of Abraham, Muhammad and all the other Prophets of the Holy Scriptures. For the past week, I have been utterly speechless and spellbound by the graciousness I see displayed all around me by people of all colors...
There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white.
America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white - but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all colors together, irrespective of their color.
You may be shocked by these words coming from me. But on this pilgrimage, what I have seen, and experienced, has forced me to rearrange much of my thought-patterns previously held, and to toss aside some of my previous conclusions. This was not too difficult for me. Despite my firm convictions, I have always been a man who tries to face facts, and to accept the reality of life as new experience and new knowledge unfolds it. I have always kept an open mind, which is necessary to the flexibility that must go hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth.
During the past eleven days here in the Muslim world, I have eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass, and slept on the same rug - while praying to the same God - with fellow Muslims, whose eyes were the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white. And in the words and in the deeds of the white Muslims, I felt the same sincerity that I felt among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan and Ghana." "We were truly all the same (brothers) - because their belief in one God had removed the white from their minds, the white from their behavior, and the white from their attitude.
I could see from this, that perhaps if white Americans could accept the Oneness of God, then perhaps, too, they could accept in reality the Oneness of Man - and cease to measure, and hinder, and harm others in terms of their 'differences' in color.
With racism plaguing America like an incurable cancer, the so-called 'Christian' white American heart should be more receptive to a proven solution to such a destructive problem. Perhaps it could be in time to save America from imminent disaster - the same destruction brought upon Germany by racism that eventually destroyed the Germans themselves.
Each hour here in the Holy Land enables me to have greater spiritual insights into what is happening in America between black and white. The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe, from the experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the walls and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth - the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to.
Never have I been so highly honored. Never have I been made to feel more humble and unworthy. Who would believe the blessings that have been heaped upon an American Negro? A few nights ago, a man who would be called in America a white man, a United Nations diplomat, an ambassador, a companion of kings, gave me his hotel suite, his bed. Never would I have even thought of dreaming that I would ever be a recipient of such honors - honors that in America would be bestowed upon a King - not a Negro.
All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of all the Worlds. Sincerely, Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X)"
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He was murdered shortly after announcing his new way of thinking, the love he felt for all. It is thought that the Nation of Islam had him killed, that it was ordered by Farrakhan. That is a sad turn of events. I would have loved to have known how things would have changed for him. What would his speeches have been like?
As for myself, I would like there a hate speech law passed in the U.S. because, to me, free speech doesn't really include hate speech. I say this because of how this election year is going, because of Donald Trump's hate speech, but I thought it even before then. Canada has a hate speech law. They are ahead of us there.
Note: For those who have complained that their book didn't have an epilogue, this kindle book does....more
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