This book relates the stories and describes the memorials of the people buried in Shelby, North Carolina's historic Sunset Cemetery, a microcosm of the Southeastern United States. The authors, an academic and a journalist, detail the lives and memories of people who are buried here, from Civil War soldiers to those who created the Jim Crow South and promoted the narrative of the Lost Cause. Featured are authors W.J. Cash and Thomas Dixon, whose racist novel was the basis for The Birth of a Nation. Drawn from historical research and local memory, it includes the tales of musicians Don Gibson and Bobby "Pepper Head" London, as well as a paratrooper who died in the Battle of the Bulge and other ordinary folks who rest in the cemetery. A bigger responsibility is to give a voice to the silenced, enslaved people of color buried in unmarked graves. Cemeteries are sacred places where artistry and memory meet--to understand, we need both the tales and the tombstones.
This book relates the stories and describes the memorials of the people buried in Shelby, North Carolina's historic Sunset Cemetery, a microcosm of the Southeastern United States. The authors, an academic and a journalist, detail the lives and memories of people who are buried here, from Civil War soldiers to those who created the Jim Crow South and promoted the narrative of the Lost Cause. Featured are authors W.J. Cash and Thomas Dixon, whose racist novel was the basis for The Birth of a Nation. Drawn from historical research and local memory, it includes the tales of musicians Don Gibson and Bobby "Pepper Head" London, as well as a paratrooper who died in the Battle of the Bulge and other ordinary folks who rest in the cemetery. A bigger responsibility is to give a voice to the silenced, enslaved people of color buried in unmarked graves. Cemeteries are sacred places where artistry and memory meet--to understand, we need both the tales and the tombstones.
An eloquent and essential correction to contemporary discussions of the American working class."—The Nation From the ongoing issues of poverty, health, housing, and employment to the recent upsurge of lethal police-community relations, the black working class stands at the center of perceptions of social and racial conflict today. Journalists and public policy analysts often discuss the black poor as “consumers” rather than “producers,” as “takers” rather than “givers,” and as “liabilities” instead of “assets.” In his engrossing history, Workers on Arrival, Joe William Trotter, Jr., refutes these perceptions by charting the black working class’s vast contributions to the making of America. Covering the last four hundred years since Africans were first brought to Virginia in 1619, Trotter traces the complicated journey of black workers from the transatlantic slave trade to the demise of the industrial order in the twenty-first century. At the center of this compelling, fast-paced narrative are the actual experiences of these African American men and women. A dynamic and vital history of remarkable contributions despite repeated setbacks, Workers on Arrival expands our understanding of America’s economic and industrial growth, its cities, ideas, and institutions, and the real challenges confronting black urban communities today.
Main description: The first listed species to make headlines after the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 was the snail darter, a three-inch fish that stood in the way of a massive dam on the Little Tennessee River. When the Supreme Court sided with the darter, Congress changed the rules. The dam was built, the river stopped flowing, and the snail darter went extinct on the Little Tennessee, though it survived in other waterways. A young Al Gore voted for the dam; freshman congressman Newt Gingrich voted for the fish. A lot has changed since the 1970s, and Joe Roman helps us understand why we should all be happy that this sweeping law is alive and well today. More than a general history of endangered species protection, Listed is a tale of threatened species in the wild-from the whooping crane and North Atlantic right whale to the purple bankclimber, a freshwater mussel tangled up in a water war with Atlanta-and the people working to save them. Employing methods from the new field of ecological economics, Roman challenges the widely held belief that protecting biodiversity is too costly. And with engaging directness, he explains how preserving biodiversity can help economies and communities thrive. Above all, he shows why the extinction of species matters to us personally-to our health and safety, our prosperity, and our joy in nature.
Other historians have tended to treat black urban life mainly in relation to the ghetto experience, but in Black Milwaukee, Joe William Trotter Jr. offers a new perspective that complements yet also goes well beyond that approach. The blacks in Black Milwaukee were not only ghetto dwellers; they were also industrial workers. The process by which they achieved this status is the subject of Trotter's ground-breaking study. This second edition features a new preface and acknowledgments, an essay on African American urban history since 1985, a prologue on the antebellum and Civil War roots of Milwaukee's black community, and an epilogue on the post-World War II years and the impact of deindustrialization, all by the author. Brief essays by four of Trotter's colleagues--William P. Jones, Earl Lewis, Alison Isenberg, and Kimberly L. Phillips--assess the impact of the original Black Milwaukee on the study of African American urban history over the past twenty years.
Bank closings, soup kitchens, bread lines, unemployed workers begging for work--these images defined the 1930s and '40s in America. For African Americans the era was a study in contrasts: black workers had the highest unemployment rate at a time when black leaders held important positions in Franklin Roosevelt's administration; New Deal legislation threw hundreds of thousands of black sharecroppers off the land while the same federal government provided unprecedented opportunities for black writers and artists; dramatic episodes of racist violence against African Americans occurred just as Communists and other radicals launched a nationwide campaign against racial injustice.When the United States entered World War II in 1941, the horrors of war provided an opportunity for blacks to demand equal treatment. As the African American servicemen, such as the all-black 99th fighter squadron (also known as the "Tuskegee Airmen"), fought for democracy overseas, black people at home were treated like second-class citizens. The war also created employment opportunities for many black working people. But few managed to get industrial jobs or into training programs, and those who did were likely to experience violent reprisals from disgruntled white workers. While U.S. troops invaded Normandy and bombed Okinawa, African Americans fought their own war at home.From a Raw Deal to a New Deal examines the impact of the depression and the war on black communities. The response of workers, farmers, activists, and the federal government, the inspiring cultural and intellectual achievements of such leading African Americans as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Marian Anderson, and the role that war-time industrialization and recovery played in black protest movements paved the way for the modern civil rights movement. This is fascinating and relevant history for today's young people.
Bank closings, soup kitchens, bread lines, unemployed workers begging for work--these images defined the 1930s and '40s in America. For African Americans the era was a study in contrasts: black workers had the highest unemployment rate at a time when black leaders held important positions in Franklin Roosevelt's administration; New Deal legislation threw hundreds of thousands of black sharecroppers off the land while the same federal government provided unprecedented opportunities for black writers and artists; dramatic episodes of racist violence against African Americans occurred just as Communists and other radicals launched a nationwide campaign against racial injustice. When the United States entered World War II in 1941, the horrors of war provided an opportunity for blacks to demand equal treatment. As the African American servicemen, such as the all-black 99th fighter squadron (also known as the "Tuskegee Airmen"), fought for democracy overseas, black people at home were treated like second-class citizens. The war also created employment opportunities for many black working people. But few managed to get industrial jobs or into training programs, and those who did were likely to experience violent reprisals from disgruntled white workers. While U.S. troops invaded Normandy and bombed Okinawa, African Americans fought their own war at home. From a Raw Deal to a New Deal examines the impact of the depression and the war on black communities. The response of workers, farmers, activists, and the federal government, the inspiring cultural and intellectual achievements of such leading African Americans as Marcus Garvey, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Marian Anderson, and the role that war-time industrialization and recovery played in black protest movements paved the way for the modern civil rights movement. This is fascinating and relevant history for today's young people.
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