Product Description
In today's resurgence of radical right-wing politics, wemust never forget how things were in the past, during the turbulentMcCarthy era. In this 326-page book, Corliss Lamont reveals thegripping saga of the Congressional Inquisition and details itstrampling on American Freedoms, including the facts of his own battleswith Senator Joseph McCarthy, the U.S. State Department, the CIA, theFBI, and the U.S. Postal Service. Successful in each encounter,Lamont's landmark decisions continue to buttress the rights of us allto this day. ... Read more

Product Description
Williams enables us to see how we can unthink the process that allows racism to persist. She presents an eloquent argument for keeping rights and affirmative action in the legal vocabulary--and a powerful description of the seemingly ineluctable status of black people in the United States today.Amazon.com Review
In a personal and profound examination of the United States legal system and its effect on African Americans, Patricia J. Williams uses the term alchemy--the medieval, mysterious practice of turning base metal into gold--as a haunting metaphor for the nearly mystical process by which United States law emboldens and endangers blacks through arcane interpretation, as well as the heroic will of a people to make those laws manifest. "I'm interested in the way in which the legal language flattens and confines in absolutes the complexity of meaning inherent in any given problem," she writes. "I am trying to challenge the usual limits of commercial discourse by using an intentionally double-voiced and relational, rather than a traditionally legal black letter, vocabulary."

With an authorial voice that draws upon Williams's perspective as teacher, lawyer, black American, and woman, The Alchemy of Race and Rights uses a palette of court cases, educational encounters, and personal experiences--including her discovery of her slave ancestor and her interactions with school deans over how to teach law--to create a literary cubist portrait detailing the rhetoric and reality that color the complexion of American justice. --Eugene Holley Jr. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Awful. Nonsense.
I can't even speak about Williams' ideas because her overly-affected, wouldbe-poet style obscures any real thought. No wonder this book cost me only $.50. Awful. Just awful writing.

This book is hardly about race, but is rather a tome of self-indulgent ramblings.

A lovely and deeply thoughtful work
The Alchemy of Race and Rights is a wonderful exploration of race and the law in modern society. In a whirlwind of impressionistic strokes, Williams beautifully illustrates the mutually constitutive nature of bodies and rules. Her elegant prose leads the reader to contemplate the law from a place where subject position is everything, and the false security of formal equivalence and abstract monetization are the very currency of oppression.

Though her writing style may be off-putting to those in search of a formal treatise on race and the law, and her fragmented invocation of the personal as a starting point for inductive work is sometimes difficult to follow, the impressionistic quality of the text is also one of its great strengths. In the end, a deeper meaning is conveyed through this sometimes schizophrenic free association than could be done through any more formally-structured argument.

Keep an open mind, and read everything twice. You won't regret the effort.

passionate diatribe
There is a lot to complain about regarding race and civil rights and this author questions how far we've come.

We have NOT arrived, she reminds us.

She is a downer and does not leave much hope, yet, somehow it is energizing to read.

A Widely Read Manifesto of Regressive Race Relations
A great deal of discourse has come out of the use of this book in my law class on the interaction of law in society, but I find it's use counter-productive to the forward-thinking goals of most academic institutions. Prof. Williams cannot seem to make up her mind on anything. She attacks Marxist lawyers, while at the same time advocating an affront to the bourgeoise, especially those without black skin (whites, Hispanics and Asians are all vilified to some degree in this book). While masquerading as a socialist activist herself, she then advocates a very right-wing goal of keeping each other in our respective racial boxes to keep order, even refusing to accept that she herself can be at once black, female and educated -- these three identities always appear separately for her. Her book is a regressive look at the future that denies the possibility of progress in race and gender relations. She is sadly unable to employ the power in her rights and instead prefers to wallow in a viscious cycle that refuses to recognize nuance, and prefers rather to assume racial categories, because they are simpler. Very few new ideas are presented in this racist, ethnically intolerant and misandric text and it is hardly worth a read, beyond the fact that it may come up in discussion.

More gibberish from the good professor
What a dreary tome. Ms. Professor Williams has a unique ability to obscure the most obvious and trite revelations in pedantic and turgid prose that she thinks is thrillingly poetic because the words are long-winded and flowery. and that's when she's making sense, which isn't very often. the rest of her writings tend to be either outright calls for more preferences for her preferred friends camouflaged as courageous iconoclasm, or just plain idiocy posing as intellectually daring originality. Sadly enough, if Thomas Kuhn is right, we'll have the likes of Professor Pat around for another couple of decades. (But hey, if you have the money, you can always sign up for the Nation's annual cruise and talk about the revolution with Pat and the gang for a mere 8 grand or so....) ... Read more

Product Description

Weaving together the lives of blacks and whites, racists and civil rights advocates, and the events of peaceful protest and violent repression, Sena Jeter Naslund creates a tapestry of American social transformation at once intimate and epic.

Customer Reviews (21)

Civil Rights
Sena Jeter Naslund's FOUR SPIRITS was very difficult to get into. I started it six times as it is a book club read. The story meanders all over the place and many times I found myself looking back through the pages to discover who was telling the story.
This is a book I can not recommend unless you have a deep interest in the early civil rights movement.
Nash Black, author or Indie finalists WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and HAINTS.

Emotional-- Very Informative
I finally read this book. I wasn't even born when the events of this book took place. However, last year I visited the church in Birmingham that was bombed, the subject of this book. It was a moving experience, seeing not only the church but also spending time in the Civil Rights Museum across the street. Four Spirits captures the spirit of that time and brings to life a large cast of characters. It's epic in scope and it puts you right there, in the 60's, in Birmingham, inside the hearts of four young women who lost their lives because of hatred. There are plenty of non-fiction books about this shameful time in our history, but this novel brings it all alive.

A novel that has it's finger on the pulse of the civil rights movement
I really enjoy historical fiction, especially about the American South. This was an enlightening read for surmising the social/political atmosphere of the deep south during the turbulent civil rights movement. I will keep this one in my library and read it again in the future.

Required reading to understand the South
I read this during a period when I lived inMontgomery, Alabama (I'm from NJ), so I was interested to learn a little bit more about the events of 1963 in Birmingham-- otherwise I might not have picked up this large volume .The story takes on the whole year of the church bombing-- the death of Kennedy, the restaurant sit-ins, the violence-- the casual violence, like the murder of a black boy by eagle scouts, that has been lost from our national snapshot-memories.It's rare for a large book with many viewpoints to enthrall me as much as this one but despite its length, I finished in about two days. Though many characters' stories are woven into this tapestry-- and the short chapters make the long book read very fast-- it's easy to keep them straight, and to care about them all, and there is a central arc in the story of Stella, a young white woman whose coming of age coincides with the awakening of social conscience of a city.After I put this book down, I felt as though I'd traveled in time and lived in a year before I was born.How the author inhabited so many souls so convincingly-- black, white, young, old-- is masterful.The writing is sharp, often poetic, sometimes humorous or magical (the unfaithful school administrator who is taunted about death by the skeleton poster on the wall), and often transcendantly beautiful.The book is filled with vivid characters like Lee, a young Klan wife with an awakening conscience, Christine,a black night-school teacher whose anger leads to courage and then to love, Cat, crippled by a rare disease yet daring to teach nightschool in a black college and dream of handicapped access, Agnes, a middle-aged student in the school and her WWII veteran husband TJ, whose love is so pure they sleep "cuddled up. " The interconnections feel inveitable.The shifting points of view add perspective rather than interrupting the flow-- for example, a bomb scare at the integrated-teaching nightschool is depicted both from inside, from the point of view of a loving husband watching, and from the point of view of the husband and then the wife of the Klan couple responsible. The book doesn't soft-sell the violence and ugliness of many Southerners of the period but it also shows the immense courage and honour of many blacks and whites of the time.Darl, at one point Stella's fiance, is cold about Kennedy's assassination-- and comes to think of Kennedy as a hero, and to wish there were a float honoring those who died for civil rights, who were also honoring their country.Authentic (the author lived through these times), heartbreaking and inspiring, this book should be required reading for everyone who wants to understand the South, and America.

Stayed with me...
I read this book months ago and it returns to me almost daily.The characters were complex and compelling yet human and natural.The story was comprehensive and multifaceted but clean and organized.Jeter Naslund's historical details are, by all accounts, very factual and well-researched.A fabulous read that I highly recommend. ... Read more

Product Description

Where is Martin Luther King, Jr. when we need him?

So much has changed since the glory days of the civil rights movement -- and so much has stayed the same. African Americans command their place at every level of society, from the lunch counter to the college campus to the corporate boardroom -- yet the gap between the American middle class and the black poor is as wide as ever. Hollywood casts a black actor as president of the United States without provoking a word of protest, but a black man is savagely dragged to his death because of the color of his skin. The hip-hop culture that springs from the imaginations of urban black youth (who are themselves reviled and feared) sweeps across the malls and high schools of suburbia, yet black students still sit together, apart, in the cafeteria. Where can we turn to find the vision that will guide us through these strange and difficult times? Michael Eric Dyson helps us find the answer in our recent past, by resurrecting the true Martin Luther King, Jr.

A private citizen who transformed the world around him, King was arguably the greatest American who ever lived. Yet, as Dyson so poignantly reveals, Martin Luther King, Jr. has disappeared in plain sight. Despite the federal holiday, the postage stamps, and the required reference in history textbooks, King's vitality and complexity have faded from view. Young people do not learn how radical he was, liberals forget that he despaired of whites even as he loved them, and contemporary black leaders tend to ignore the powerful forces that shaped him -- the black church, language, and sexuality -- thereby obscuring his relevance to black youth and hip-hop culture. Instead, King's legacy has become a battlefield on which various forces wage war -- whether it is conservatives who appropriate his words to combat affirmative action, or the King family themselves, who want to control use of the great man's words for a fee.

Former welfare dad, Princeton Ph.D., and Baptist preacher, Michael Eric Dyson sets out to find the man who was assassinated when Dyson himself was a nine-year-old boy living in downtown Detroit. And in his quest to unravel the meaning of King, Dyson discovers that the very contradictions embodied in the slain leader's life make him a man for our times. He returns to us a man as radical in his view of social injustice as Malcolm X, who still won the support of the white establishment; a man dedicated to the common good, who gave in to his own appetites; a master of language and rhetoric, who "sampled" the words and ideas of others; a man who despised the unjust distribution of wealth and used its fruits to feed his own people. Dyson rescues from history a Martin Luther King, Jr. who matters today: a man who has as much in common with rap artist Tupac Shakur as he does with the Reverend Ralph Abernathy. Unafraid to confront King's personal life, determined to defend King from the sanitizing forces of historical amnesia, Michael Eric Dyson challenges us to embrace the man who said, prophetically, on the eve of his death, "I May Not Get There With You," and to make him our partner in our ongoing struggle to get to the Promised Land.Amazon.com Review
Provocative preacher-teacher Michael Eric Dyson, known for his hip-hop-style delivery and encyclopedic intellectual powers, heroically tries to update and examine the true legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. for a glib Generation-X world. Calling I May Not Get There with You a work of "biocriticism," Dyson peels away the superficial image of King the man to reveal a complex human being whose work was far from finished or totally understood. "In the last thirty years we have trapped King in romantic images or frozen his legacy in worship," he writes. "I seek to rescue King from his admirers and deliver him from his foes." To that end, Dyson takes aim at neoconservatives like Shelby Steele, who spin King's multiracial dreams into a right-wing call to end affirmative action, and goes after black militants who thought King was "soft" and overlooked the power of his "black radical Christianity." He also criticizes the government's co-opting of King's philosophy in a holiday, as well as what he calls the King family's well-meaning, but destructive, attempts to protect King's legacy. Dyson forces us to accept King for all of his faults--including plagiarism and womanizing--but more importantly allows us to see a real human being who rose to the height of humanity. --Eugene Holley, Jr. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (21)

Flawed
An uneven book marred by bad chapters. For instance Chapter 9 tries to relate King to rappers. Did Dr. King swear and use profanities in his speeches from the pulpit? Also there is overuse of rhetoric, repetitiveness and useless digressions (or rants). Is it necessary to know what Mr. Dyson thinks of Clinton - this is a digression.

Nevertheless there are some good critiques. King did not allow women a proper place in the `movement' - the SCLC. For Dr. King women appeared to be playthings.

Also there is good criticism of King's successors - namely Coretta and family in chapter 13.

Worth reading, but flawed
Michael Eric Dyson intends to reveal the "real" Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he posits was a much more radical figure than he is currently remembered as being. To what extent he has succeeded, and to what extent his argument is colored by his own politics, I am really not competent to say.I do think that his characterization of Shelby Steele's The Content of Our Character: A New Vision of Race In America is inaccurate. One great strength of Dyson's approach is that he understands that communication occurs in a context. So often, I read biographers who examine their subjects' statements as if they were all the result of intensive self-scrutiny, delivered under oath.In fact, without necessarily being dishonest, communication is shaped by its purpose: persuasive people address the audience's concerns, rather than merely expressing their own. Dyson often analyzes King's statements with regard to the intended audience.

I found the book thought-provoking, but somewhat uneven; sometimes I was gripped, other material could only have improved the book by being dropped. Chapter Five, "Black Power", is somewhat vacuous. I was left with the feeling that Black nationalism is an idea that Dyson swears loyalty as proof that he is "authentic," but has little concrete meaning.The contention by Dyson's colleague that begins the chapter, and his response, bears out the suspicion that academics strive to prove the first Grand Duke of Fenwick's contention that yes can be turned into no if one just talks long enough.Personally, I have always thought that Plato, with his Ideals, was the one sitting in a cave looking at shadows, and this is all too abstract for me. I don't really accept Dyson's assumption that freeing Blacks from the ghetto or enhancing Black self-esteem is inconsistent with integration or that Clarence Thomas is the model of an integrated African-American, especially at this stage, let alone that it is King and not George Bush who put him on the Supreme Court.Even if this were a color-blind society, which it is not, all Blacks would be unlikely to all be like Thomas. Dyson holds up the still severely segregated school system as an example of how integration may have cost African-Americans more than they gained "Segregated schools provided a culture of expectation in which black students were taught that they could perform well," and then says, "Studies show that black students in integrated schools complete more years of schooling ... and make higher wages than their segregated peers."The latter sounds more like integration, unfortunately, failed to be successfully enacted, not that it was a bad idea. Worse, the idea of Black Power remains rather nebulous: what does it mean to Dyson, and more to the point, what did it mean to King? If Dyson means this book for non-Black people, he may need to explain more.Dyson's only good point in the chapter is that the Black church, from which King drew so much strength, is the greatest Black institution that has ever existed.

Dyson's later psychobabble (chapter 8) about what King's adulteries meant to him strikes me as equally empty. Personally, I don't have heroes: there are people that I admire for particular accomplishments and traits.I could admire no-one and nothing if I held out for perfection, and I'd have no friends if they were waiting for me to be perfect.So I agree emphatically with Dyson that King's personal misconduct does not negate his enormous public accomplishments. I wish that he had left it at that.

Dyson also takes the opportunity to go off on a tangent about Hip Hop (chapter 9). Hecompiles a long list of similarities between King and Tupac Shakur, but many of them do not rise much above the fact that they were both men and both black, while others involve traits that King considered to be his flaws.As Dyson has repeatedly warned us not to be overly reverential, he might ask whether he elevates Shakur or denigrates King.At several points, Dyson acknowledges the significant point that the difference is that King regretted his less admirable traits and the Hip Hop artists seem to celebrate them, but then he ignores that insight for most of the chapter. The best he seems to be able to come up with is to argue that Hip Hop artists are also angry, but it is what King did with his anger that made him great.

I also wonder about how fair Dyson was to the King family (chapter 12). He mentions in the middle of the chapter that the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was insensitive to the needs of a family with modest means suddenly bereft of its breadwinner.Coretta King's attempts to profit by King's legacy are not systematically reviewed in light of her need to support a family, let alone her desire to create the King Center. King's failure to provide for his family in the event of an early death that he was sure was coming may be seen as a failingto equal his marital infidelities.Dyson is a bit vague about the King family's track record as activists, especially Coretta King, which would give them a bit more moral standing. Still, Dyson raises some very good points about the difference between inheriting copyright and inheriting moral standing. I found this to be one of the most interesting chapters.

Praise, unfortunately, always seems to be briefer than criticism; this is a book worth reading for those contemplating the legacy of King and remembering the distance that we still have to go.Be sure to read the notes, as they often contain a great deal of information, and can be very interesting. The book includes a bibliography and index.

Testify!
I find it very refreshing when a product of multiculturalism throws a wrench in the system and violently turns against his masters.In this provocative (though unsurprisingly silenced) work of pop scholarship college diversity program poster-child and hip hop "expert" Eric Dyson sets to work on deconstructing the white-washed image of Martin Luther King, Jr. that the American left has successfully promoted without opposition for the past four decades.

But wait a minute, Martin Luther King Jr. was an American patriot, someone who was deeply devoted to the ideals of its Founding Fathers and simply wanted to tinker with a few of the more archaic aspects of American society (Jim Crow) so that everyone could at least have a fair shot at the American Dream.I must admit that up until a few months ago I was captured (more like poisoned) by this ridiculous myth, probably more so than most even.The story of King's life seemed so inspiring, who wouldn't want to believe in it?

Turns out pretty much everything taught about MLK in public schools are at best half truths and all of the most hideous aspects of his life go completely unmentioned.As Dyson tells us, the truly radical aspects of King's ideology - such as his close association with the American Communist Party - are silenced specifically to keep African Americans in check.Undoubtedly, but these facts are suppressed specifically to keep suspicious whites in a state of unthinking, unquestioning silence as much as anyone else.Dyson didn't have to dig very much to uncover this information, even King's closest associates and biggest financial backers were Communists.

Dyson also quotes some of King's most damaging speeches and interviews on economics that leave little doubt about what King's larger social and economic objectives actually were."Oh, gee willickers!," the multiculturalist will scream, tearing the hair from his head, "You've got it all wrong - King only promoted the positive aspects of Communism."Well that all depends on just what you think the "positive" aspects of Communism really are.Let's see, King patently endorsed the redistribution of wealth, destruction of the military, labor's seizure of private business, abolition of private property...oh but don't worry, no Gulags!

Predictably the trail of putrid scandal doesn't end there.In what has become a recurring theme amongst American leftists King possessed a voracious and positively uncontrollable appetite for cheap prostitutes.The point in mentioning this type of degenerate behavior at all is so Dyson can tie King's participation in the Civil Rights movement to the anti-objectivity counter-revolution that occurred subsequently thereafter.Here as well King was quite an active critic of the military (not JUST Vietnam), did interviews with pornographic magazines, generally did everything in his power to undermine sensible restraints wherever they existed, and ensured that a whole generation was indoctrinated into loving themselves and living for themselves only.Most important in all of these activities by King were the rumblings of what would later become known as "Affirmative Action."

Dyson of course supports this development unconditionally and who could blame him, he is where he is precisely because King and his predecessors (backed by the Federal Government) were able to intimidate employers, agencies, and universities into adopting certain "hiring policies" favorable to African Americans.Noticably missing however in this book is elaboration on King's despicable intellectual dishonesty and theft (60% of his doctoral thesis at Boston University was stolen from another student) of other people's work throughout the entirety of his career.

The story of "Dr." King is not an entirely uncommon one for political figures and needless to say his story is hardly inspiring.Indeed, it's typical even for the most violent political leaders to take a relatively egalitarian approach in the beginning, only to shed this facade once they start gathering steam in favor of uncompromising authoritarianism.Vladimir Lenin was an outspoken critic of the Czar and railed against the regime for its suppression of political speech, exploitation of the working class, and persecution of ethnic and religious minorities.Well, we all know how that turned out.I seriously doubt that Martin Luther King, Jr. was any different.Just as another reviewer pointed out, if he were alive today I'm sure he'd be right there with Al Sharpton and Jesse falsely accusing random college students of rape, petitioning to get O.J. Simpson reduced bail, and doing anything he possibly could to exacerbate whatever racial tensions still exist in this country.

Why Dyson thinks this new version of King is great for black folks is anyone's guess, frankly I don't care.I'm just glad I don't have to listen to this hippy nonsense anymore and for that I am thankful.

An interesting expose
I agree with Dr. King's message of harmony and peace.At the same time I can appreciate Dyson's exposure of aspects of King's personal life that most authors do not address (an obvious exception is "And the Walls Came Tumbling Down").In a very real sense it leads to questioning Dr. King's sincerity in asking others to value the character of a person and not the color of their skin.Dr. King was an admirable figure in American history; I wouldn't go as far as the author in saying he might be the most important American ever; that's a bit over the top. I've read a lot on the subject; this book is worth reading.

Fascinating
I have always been fascinated with Dr. King as one of the most influential leaders of the 20th century. I love the work that Dr. Dyson did in writing this book, because he is authentic in talking about Dr. King the man - strengths, weaknesses and all - while exposing the myths about him. Being African-American, I can understand why many within our community woud want to scold Dr. Dyson for exposing Dr. King's dirty laundry. I, however, consider it not only essential, but relevant that we talk about the true humanity of our leaders (espcially one as esteemed as Dr. King) to avoid the danger of us elevating them as idols. It is a great reminder that God uses people (albeit flawed people) for magnificent works in a fallen world. This is a great book that I highly recommed!! ... Read more

Product Description
Jesse Jackson is a modern day highway robber who uses cries of racism to steal from individuals, corporations, and government, to give to himself, says veteran investigative reporter Kenneth R. Timmerman.

Until now, however, no one has been brave enough to say it and diligent enough to prove it. But Ken Timmerman has cracked Jackson's machine, found Jackson cronies willing to break ranks, and uncovered a sordid tale of greed, ambition, and corruption from a self-proclaimed minister who has no qualms about poisoning American race relations for personal gain.

Shakedown reveals:

* Jackson's massive defrauding of the federal government - and how both Republican and Democratic administrations have chosen to ignore it.

* Jackson's financial ties to Third World dictators - including Mohammar Qaddafi of Libya.

* Jackson's shocking private life - and his even more shocking public lies, including about his relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King

Other details must remain embargoed until publication, but one thing is for certain, Shakedown finally bursts the carefully constructed myths around Jesse Jackson and subject him to the critical scrutiny he's long deserved.

Kenneth R. Timmerman, a reporter with more than two decades of experience, has written for many magazines and newspapers including Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest, and The American Spectator, and has appeared on Nightline, Sixty Minutes, and many other television programs. He lives in Kensington, Maryland, with his wife and five children. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (133)

Well Researched
Who knew a whole empire could be built living off taxpayer coffers and exploiting businesses.Disgusting!

Incredulous
Ken Timmerman wrote this book after reading Ms. Barbara Reynolds's book (search for "On March 12, 2002, Rob Redding interviewed Barbara Reynolds"), "Jesse Jackson: The Man, The Movement, and The Myth."So I'm very incredulous about this man's motivation and source material.Moreover, he has a degree in creative writing so I would not be surprised if his book is nothing but a creative derivation of Ms. Reynolds's book.Nevertheless, I refuse to buy it.However, I will read it if I'm able to obtain it for free (e.g. library).

More true than not
Why 3 stars - I think the book could have been a lot shorter and more concise.

Here is my opinion; there is enough of a public record on Mr. Jackson for us all to be able to objectively access that Jesse's number one constituency is Mr. Jackson himself.He is not a leader but an opportunist.Most African American's of note do not purport Jesse as a leader in our community as this has always been a mainstream creation.I am not a member of the Nation of Islam but I can guarantee you that Jesse could never have had a million men show up in DC like Minister Farrakhan.Leadership is more than number of TV appearance but real change in your community.I believe a lot of the programs that Jesse helped create had good intentions but they all became vehicles for his self advancement.

Net - worth a read, probably don't need to read it cover to cover to get the point.

Everything you never hear about Jesse Jackson
The only question here is how Jesse Jackson manages to stay out of prison. A real eye-opener about who and what this man really is. The name of the book says it all.

Very well documented and footnoted book.

Jesse Jackson, the scam we always knew he was running
WOW, what an expose. Everyone needs to find out the scams and money making schemes that this guy in engaged in and always was.

You need to read this to find out how Jesse gets rich and is no Reverend. ... Read more

Product Description

Lucette Lagnado's father, Leon, is a successful Egyptian businessman and boulevardier who, dressed in his signature white sharkskin suit, makes deals and trades at Shepherd's Hotel and at the dark bar of the Nile Hilton. After the fall of King Farouk and the rise of the Nasser dictatorship, Leon loses everything and his family is forced to flee, abandoning a life once marked by beauty and luxury to plunge into hardship and poverty, as they take flight for any country that would have them.

Customer Reviews (85)

must read
Fabulous true story written by the person who lived it with her family.She is an excellant writer and current writes for the Wall Street Journal.
It is amazing what can happen to people in their lives and how much drastic change can turn it around, not always in a good way.

Beautiful story, wonderful writing
This is a wonderful book recommended by my cousin, who is an Egyptian-born Jew. Lucette Lagnadoabsorbs you at once into Egypt of the 1940s and 50s. Her family is flawed and fascinating. I read that she had to edit half of the book; I'd be thrilled to read the 900 page version, or anything else she writes in the future, for that matter.

Poignant, memorable portrait of a modern-day exodus
Lucette Lagnado's beautiful, remarkably well documented portrait of her family and their ultimate expulsion from Egypt to the United States in the early 1960s repeats a trope of Jewish history: periods of peace for Jews somewhere in the diaspora, followed by abrupt, cruel expulsion to new lands.

This book gave me an appreciation for the richness the Egyptian Jews enjoyed, not only monetarily (surely not all Jews from Egypt had the wealth that this family once had) but the richness of a shared community and of the distinctive Jewish rituals, foods and practices they shared.
I was particularly moved by the author's portrait of her father, for whom the book is titled, and her love for him. He was a very complex man, deeply flawed and yet with an unbelievable strength and hidden reservoirs of love and dedication that emerged over the decades.

This is one book that deserves the praise and awards it has received.

A Family's Long Journey
This is a story about transition from the old, familiar world in which life seemed so comfortable and stable to a new existence across the ocean. In this case the specific cities were Cairo to New York with several complex and unsatisfying stops in Europe. The family was used to a relatively aristocratic existence in Egypt until things became quite unpleasant for Jews as Israel came into existence and then was in active conflict with Egypt. What was once an accepting and welcoming place turned into a sea of rejection and hardship. There was nothing else to do finally except for a painful move. No more independence for this family. Their trials begin with an injury to the father, a rather dramatic, stubborn and religious character who was revered and elegant in his local community at the beginning of the story and who ultimately winds up at the mercy of others at the end of his life.
In a way, though the peculiar characteristics of this family are quite distinct from the average immigrant, this book is a reasonably well told account of the pain of leaving one culture and finding a place in another. The author is the youngest child of a family of four. She details the history of the family well and one can almost taste the beloved but no longer existent Cairo into which she is born. While the family is Jewish and the father is deeply involved in his Egyptian and Jewish communities, this could be a tale that represents many universal aspects of the hardships of displaced persons who ultimately become outsiders and far more helpless than they started out in life.
I enjoyed the book for the most part but it is not a dramatic reading and some of the characters are sketchy. It does do a good job of describing the changes that immigrants endure and that traditional families face as modernism enters their life.

This is not just a Jewish story.
My father was put on a train at 11 years old, alone, by his parents.He was going to be lynched that evening, for not moving out of the way fast enough, in Alabama.He, too, was never able to adjust and reconcile.He did not see his parents again for over 30 years.I am 65 years old, his youngest child. Like LuLu, I was privileged to be "turned over" to him while the rest of my family got on with their lives.I cried when LuLu dad died, because I understood her love for him.I feel the same way about my dad.Judgement I will leave to those of you who had perfect parents. ... Read more

Product Description
"Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger."

Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by one of his playmates in the late spring of 1970, heralded a firestorm that would forever transform the small tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina.

On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel, a rough man with a criminal record and ties to the Ku Klux Klan, and came out running.Teel and two of his sons chased Marrow, beat him unmercifully, and killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. In the words of a local prosecutor: "They shot him like you or I would kill a snake."

Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement.But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets, led by 22-year-old Ben Chavis, a future president of the NAACP. As mass protests crowded the town square, a cluster of returning Vietnam veterans organized what one termed "a military operation." While lawyers battled in the courthouse that summer in a drama that one termed "a Perry Mason kind of thing," the Ku Klux Klan raged in the shadows and black veterans torched the town's tobacco warehouses.

With large sections of the town in flames, Tyson's father, the pastor of Oxford's all-white Methodist church, pressed his congregation to widen their vision of humanity and pushed the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away.

Years later, historian Tim Tyson returned to Oxford to ask Robert Teel why he and his sons had killed Henry Marrow. "That nigger committed suicide, coming in here wanting to four-letter-word my daughter-in-law," Teel explained.

The black radicals who burned much of Oxford also told Tim their stories. "It was like we had a cash register up there at the pool hall, just ringing up how much money we done cost these white people," one of them explained. "We knew if we cost 'em enough goddamn money they was gonna start changing some things."

In the tradition of To Kill a Mockingbird, Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic work of conscience, a defining portrait of a time and place that we will never forget. Tim Tyson's riveting narrative of that fiery summer and one family's struggle to build bridges in a time of destruction brings gritty blues truth, soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to our complex history, where violence and faith, courage and evil, despair and hope all mingle to illuminate America's enduring chasm of race.Amazon.com Review
When he was but 10 years old, Tim Tyson heard one of his boyhood friends in Oxford, N.C. excitedly blurt the words that were to forever change his life: "Daddy and Roger and 'em shot 'em a nigger!" The cold-blooded street murder of young Henry Marrow by an ambitious, hot-tempered local businessman and his kin in the Spring of 1970 would quickly fan the long-flickering flames of racial discord in the proud, insular tobacco town into explosions of rage and street violence. It would also turn the white Tyson down a long, troubled reconciliation with his Southern roots that eventually led to a professorship in African-American studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison--and this profoundly moving, if deeply troubling personal meditation on the true costs of America's historical racial divide. Taking its title from a traditional African-American spiritual, Tyson skillfully interweaves insightful autobiography (his father was the town's anti-segregationist Methodist minister, and a man whose conscience and human decency greatly informs the son) with a painstakingly nuanced historical analysis that underscores how little really changed in the years and decades after the Civil Rights Act of 1965 supposedly ended racial segregation. The details are often chilling: Oxford simply closed its public recreation facilities rather than integrate them; Marrow's accused murderers were publicly condemned, yet acquitted; the very town's newspaper records of the events--and indeed the author's later account for his graduate thesis--mysteriously removed from local public records. But Tyson's own impassioned personal history lessons here won't be denied; they're painful, yet necessary reminders of a poisonous American racial legacy that's so often been casually rewritten--and too easily carried forward into yet another century by politicians eagerly employing the cynical, so-called "Southern Strategy." --Jerry McCulley ... Read more

Customer Reviews (58)

The myths Americans tell themselves
Americans love their sanitized, After-School Special version of the civil rights movement, in which we've progressed inevitably from the bad old days of slavery to the modern day where racism is just the occasional gaffe that gets a news commentator fired or a few hicks wearing sheets way off in the boonies. Tim Tyson strips away this mythology in his story of a black man who was murdered in 1970 by a violent, mean-tempered white business owner, allegedly for flirting with his daughter-in-law. Six years after the Civil Rights Act, Oxford, North Carolina was still a segregated town where white supremacy ruled, unapologetically. But when the all-white jury acquitted Robert Teal even of any lesser charge like manslaughter, the town's African American population rose up in outrage, and Oxford's businesses burned.

Decades later, Tyson, who was eleven years old at the time, and whose father was a liberal white desegregationist minister who was subsequently driven out of town, came back to interview everyone involved, including the murderer, Robert Teal. Blood Done Sign My Name is the result of that project, but it's also a look at how Americans have always lied to themselves about our country's race relations, and continue to do so to this day. Slave owners said, "Our slaves are like part of the family." In the 1990s, Tyson took a group of students to a Southern plantation that had been the site of a bloody slave uprising, and found it turned into an antebellum theme park with hardly any mention of slavery. The murder of Henry Marrow is really just a small part of this story.

This book was what became Tyson's Master's thesis, and it's powerful and engaging and contains many truths that still bear repeating, over and over. I gave it 4 stars instead of 5 because while Tyson is quite honest about his own white liberal guilt and how he and his family were complicit in the very system they opposed, the fact remains that in places the book still ends up being more about him and his own family's history. Fair enough, as it's his book to write and it's his own history, in part, that he wanted to confront, but as he shows us, the stories white people tell are not the stories black people tell about the same events. He does his best to get the whole story from all sides, but inevitably, one senses that there are pieces a white dude just isn't going to be able to dig up, no matter how earnest and well-intentioned.

Extremely pleased
I received the item promptly and was in excellent condition. I would definitely use the seller in the future and recommend to others.

Compelling true story plus commentary on U.S. race relations
The author, who is white, reflects on the history of race relations in the United States, drawing upon his own experience as the son of a United Methodist minister in the 1960s. The story centers on the killing of an unarmed black man by several white men in a small Southern town and the following murder trial. The author returned to the area as a college student to interview the participants in the incident on both sides of the color line.Those interviews, and his personal remembrances, are the basis of the story, which was written later in his life.

The most compelling parts of the book relate to the author's own experience and his interviews. However, he is a college professor who feels compelled to lecture the reader on race relations. Although some of this information is probably informative to younger people who did not live through this part of history, the writing tends to be preachy and judgmental in places. The author could have been more effective in expressing his views with a more restrained approach.

One of the most telling parts of the book is the reflection that, as a young white boy, he was taught that all are equal in the sight of God, but that living in an area where racism was everywhere was like a fish living in water. He absorbed the racism without really understanding it.

long way still to go
Before I get to the book, a bit of background: To me (now 69), going up in Davidson North Carolina (1945-54), where my father was a minister and Professor?. I led a sheltered life.

The civil rights movement shaped my generation, shaped the peace movement and the feminist movement and the "green" movement. All these movements seemed to die away in the 80's and 90's and with the next generations....what went wrong? Was our struggle a century occurrence, a blip, a fluke, a cyclical thing? No, it was the shoulders on which the next "revolutionaries" (which we were not) could stand, it had not been in vain, despite the Republican and retrograde, capitalist,years to come. Marge Piercy has described the "standing on the shoulders" well in her novel on the French revolution- City of Light.

In his masterful book Blood Done Signed My Name (all book titles should be underlined), Tim Tyson states: "Most of the white people who appear in film footage of civil rights marches were brave followers of Leon Trotsky or radical Catholic sisters, saintly kooks of one description or another"- and these were exactly the directions my life would take, saintly or not. When I consider the happenings in Tim's North Carolina town of Oxford, as described in this book- along with Taylor Branch's 3 books on M L King, I believe Tim's to be the most important civil rights account since To Kill a Mockingbird. If my childhood was sheltered in Davidson, it is true that Tim only realized what really happened researching his book- not at the time it had happened.

But in the book he tells it like it is.

Tim on Eddie McCoy: one of the black leaders in Oxford at the time and after- McCoy ia dismissive of "outside agitators" when it comes to civil rights advances. He claims, "I didn't need that." (meaning the persons who came down from the north to help start a movement). No? Did blacks fight back as hard before the Freedom Riders? Why diss allies?Sounds like swagger to me- boastful, unneeded comments. Sure, it's foolish to extol the successes of the movement as only due to non violent civil disobediance when it was such events as the torching of tocacco and lumber warehouses in Oxford and the boycotts of white owned businesses that moved the whites along- yet and still.........as in the labor movement, militant destruction of property contributed a lot to the movement.

As Tim points out- a 38 special can also carry a lot of weight- not just the tactics of "non violent civil disobediance".

One of the black Viet vets that Tyson quotes says of Ben Chavis- a militant black organizer) that he "didn't know sh t! We didn't give a damn about his Martin Luther King bullsh t," and apparently it was the black Viet vets who burned down the big warehouses of tobacco and lumber in Oxford, after Marrow's murder and the aquittal of the murderers by an all white jury (are they still alive?)

Tyson writes, "the nation has comforted itself by sanitizing the civil rights movement, commemorating it as a civic celebration that no one ever opposed."

Note that Robert Teel's son (son of the acquitted murderer)has a web site trying to "set the record straight" and calling Tim a "race hustler". Tell me issues don't still exist in the Carolinas and the rest of the right wing south- land of the Repubublican's "southern strategy". America has yet to come to grips with the race issue. It occurs to me that Oxford, NC owes reparations- that this case should be re opened- as should many in the south. White racists who have gotten away w stuff whould be brought to justice- white jurors, white murderers.

I note that Tim was arrested protesting Wake Co school policies in 2010.

See the documentary on the Freedom Riders that came out in 2010.

To me the reviewer/critics of this book might acquit the murderers again- they still go free never forget. Defenders of the ole south ride the night in several of these reviews. As they nitpick thru the details, I challenge them- who did kill Marrow and why did they go unpunished and where are they now? Do they care about justice? Have they done anything for it or civil rights?

There are retrograde, armchair warriors with us still- right wingers mostly, or, just willing to overlook the facts and how progress is made in struggle. They oppose it still.

Can we just get over the whole "black" thing
How many years are we going to beat this dead horse.Everyone acknowledges that black's were discriminated against, changes were made, and now we have a Black Village Idiot for president.What more can be done to appease black people.I for one don't plan to cut any slack for any race.This is America, you don't like it, leave it.If you can't write about uplifting, good, kind and generous black people who made a difference in someone's life, then don't write.Read the book "The Blind Side".Learn how black and white people have made a difference in each others lives in a good way. ... Read more

Product Description
The Pulitzer Prize-winning first installment of the outstanding civil rights-era series comes to audio! Epic in scope and impact, this audiobook is hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement. Moving from the fiery political baptism of Martin Luther King, Jr., to the corridors of Camelot where the Kennedy brothers weighed demands of justice against the deceptions of J. Edgar Hoover, here is the vivid tapestry of America, torn and finally transformed by a revolutionary struggle unequaled since the Civil War. 4 cassettes. .Amazon.com Review
An award-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr., ahistory of the civil rights movement, and a portrait of an era, TaylorBranch's Parting the Waters begins slowly but soon catches thelistener in a tumult of unforgettable events.Branch's thoroughresearch has been synthesized into an impressive account of theviolence, courage, and confusion at the beginning of the civil rightsmovement, building to a powerful conclusion with a blow-by-blowretelling of the events in Birmingham, Alabama. Ably narrated by JoeMorton and C.C.H. Pounder, the audio abridgment is occasionallychoppy, but well-done considering the print edition runs about 900pages. The broad cast of characters includes Baptist preachers andstudent movement leaders as well as President John F. Kennedy and hiscabinet. If you are daunted by the sheer mass of the print edition ofParting the Waters, this abridged production is foryou. However don't be surprised if you find yourself wanting more anddigging into the print version after all or perhaps the audio versionofPillar ofFire, Taylor's second book in his projected three-partseries. (Running time: 6 Hours; 4 cassettes) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (40)

MUCH USEFUL INFORMATION BUT A DISGRACE
Iknow what I have to say will be contentious. First let me say this book is beautifully written and contains a great deal of useful information. Having said that I find it in places poorly researched but mainly vexing. First Paul Robeson gets one mention; second Ben Davis is damned with "pity"--more importantly this book focuses on the elites and frankly as SNCC understood so well elites do not make the movement. Dr. King did not make the movement, the movement made Dr. King. I grant Branch's exploration of the conflicts in Dr. King's character are insightful--but his focus is distorted. Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer--if we are to talk about individuals--perhaps the greatest American who ever lived gets about three pages. You cannotIMAGINEhow angry that makes me!The book is dedicated to a true hero Septima Clarke--but though she is mentiooned throughout she is not ever really explored--her story is not heard. Bob Moses comes off as some kind of mystic--that is just stupid. Mr. Moses was quiet and shunned publicity. Nowhere is there any real sense that Black People had been struggling mightily well before 1954. It would be too much to ask Branch to talk about Ned Cobb or Ralph Gray; they come well before the movement "officially" began. But Branch does not really understand the difference between a movement and a crusade. Crusades are charismatic and look to iconic leadership. Movements are democratic and look to ordinary people. I don't care about Brown V Board and I sure don't care what Kennedy or any of those Washington Pols did or did not do. Great history rescues the unknown people without whose dedication success is impossible. Branch does not get it. In " All God's Dangers"Ned Cobb one of the "unlettered"--a black communistsharecropper says "I tell the world: all I wants is protection. I ain't stepped back nary a foot since I joined that union and furthermore ...you better mind how you walk up on me today. I stand now where I stood then" Mrs. Hamer a devoutly religious woman put it another way"I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired". THESE are the voices great history should bring us, not the machinations of a sexually incontinent president. Hell, I'd be more interested in hearing the voices of the white strudents who viciously abused James Merideth--what were they like? J. Anthony Lukas (who praises Branch) made it a point to listen to those voices in Common Ground.
Branch calls his trilogy "The King years" They were not. I think Dr. King would agree.They were the years in which ordinary people long abused began as SNCC put it "to make the decisons that affected their own lives" That does not happen often and Branch for all his research nowhere, NOWHERE aknowledges that. In a way this kind of top down history yearns for another Dr. King (or I suspect an Obama) to rescue us Black and White. It don't work like that.

Parting the waters
This book was so hard to get through. If you are looking for history about King and 1954-1963, this is the book for you. It does open your eyes to the awful truths about race and how white society handled losing control. A lot of people today would like to forget that period in time. While this book was chock full of history it does not pace the events slow enough for the reader to absorb what they are reading. It seems like Mr. Branch was so occupied with getting the facts out that he leaves the reader overwhelmed. Still in all, I think its a book that everyone should read because learning history is not always pretty but it is necessary.

The best book I've ever read.
What more can I say? It's big and intimidating, and most people don't seem to get through it on the first go-round. It doesn't start you off with I Have a Dream, it starts you off with this nutty old preacher you've probably never heard of (Vernon Johns). My advice: stick with it. It might just change your life.

Undiscovered Country
This book is even better than the glowing reviews suggested.It's simply a masterpiece of intelligent writing.The author respects the reader's intelligence, and has an amazing ability to mix detail and the big picture.I love the way the author combines a highly readable style with both arresting action, minute detail, and yet keeps his balance.He is able to get you excited about the events in Albany, GA as though they are happening now, then backs off to show how the whole campaign kind of died.He has remarkable energy and writing talent, and a wonderful ability to shift gears, weave threads together.

Amazingly Woven Detail
As you begin to read chapter one, this book will become a page-turner.The amazingly woven detail gives life to this story of over fifty years ago.Author Taylor Branch documents how M. L. King, Jr. walked into the storm of what was to become the Civil Rights Movement, and was then sucked into its vortex. As a "boomer" I was alive during parts of this, growing up in the Midwest.I remember some headlines and TV scenes, but reading the minutiae of what was behind those headlines was like unto discovering a mother's diary.I thoroughly enjoyed it. ... Read more