Forgotten Lives: African Americans in South Dakota
344512
Excellent  , well written on many little known facts that should find their way into school books.
Material is  here for  some factual old west movies.  I lived by and  knew the folks living in the Sully County colony
in the late 20s & 30s.
4444438
It is an excellent book  well researched  and easily read---As a life long Southern Minnesotan  I was shocked that towns I knew so well had been hotbeds  of KKK and anti immigrant sentiment. i grew up in the 50's and the people who had been in the klan would still have been active in life  in communities.  As a Catholic I had no idea  Southern Minnesota  had such strong feelings-- great crdit to a fine author
3059494
This excellent book is the recipient of the Western Association of Women Historians Penny Kanner Award. The citation reads: "Sharony Greens Remember Me to Miss Louisa: Hidden Black-White Intimacies in Antebellum America is an extensive, well-documented monograph about interracial relationships and their aftermath in antebellum America. In it, the author carefully interweaves documentary materials into a narrative that brings nuance to the question of African-American womens experiences under slavery. Green manages to craft a story of the complicated, fraught, nonetheless beneficial experiences that developed out of these relationships. Situating them carefully in the wider socio-political context, neither treating them as examples of unmitigated oppression nor celebrating them as examples of womens agency, her book illuminates the contradictions of the times. With material focusing on four case studies Green offers a story of complexity and ambiguity, cutting through any simple ideological interpretation of these lives to enable their stories to emerge in fullness, treating these tales with the seriousness and unflinching observation
they deserve. Admittedly a controversial topic, Green brings dignity above all to the African-American lives scarred by slavery, without avoiding the question of whether the strategies pursued to escape the taint served self-interest or the wider good. In fact, she refuses that dichotomy."
3542723
This book is a good resource for historical facts relating to treaties made in the Dakotas. Don C Clowser has done his research, and contributed to closing the gap of knowledge about the region.
4236905
I have just read this book by my former classmate Sarah Bracey White and found it to be very informative and insightful. It brought back many memories of my child hood growing up in the south and also our time spent at Lincoln High. I look forward to reading the other two sequels. Sarah, I wish you continued blessings as you share your journey.
Cassie Woods DaCosta
322525
The author has used a very effective approach in covering North Dakota's history.  Some of the stories are very heart rending.
54537
In 1909, Ruth Adele (Dellie) Standard has to make a choice.  Shes torn between a promise she made to her mother to leave Barbados, and her loyalty to her younger brothers and sisters.  Dellie is torn between the unknown  the promise of a better life in America, and the known - the hard work associated with  the sugar cane crop.  Dellie, already unsettled by her mothers death and the fact that her boyfriend Pendril Stoute is planning to go to sea, has a horrifying encounter with the master of the sugar plantation on which her family are tenants.  Dellie , hoping to find employment as a seamstress, packs her sewing basket and follows her sister Lillian to Brooklyn, New York.

Life in New York is not easy.  Dellie is made welcome by Lillian and her husband, Coleridge, and their friend Winnie, but their landlady Mrs Cumberbatch is difficult.  Initially, Dellie has difficulty finding work, and is made very aware of inequality in America but eventually she finds her own way.  Along the way, despite never forgetting Pendril Stoute, Dellie marries Owen Gibson, an African American Pullman porter with his own dreams of advancement.  It seems to be a marriage of convenience for Dellie rather than a love match.  What does the future hold for Dellie and Owen?  Can they achieve their dreams?  Will she ever see Pendril again?

In this, her debut novel, Ms Carey reconstructs her grandmothers life, bringing both her hardships and dreams to life.  Early twentieth century history provides the structure, memories of her grandmother and her grandmothers precious possessions (letters and treasures kept in an old black leather handbag) provide the personal dimension and connection to Dellies world.
I enjoyed this novel, felt drawn into Dellies world with its joys, hardships, tragedies and setbacks, and kept hoping for Dellie to find lasting happiness.  There is more to Dellies story, and I hope that Ms Carey writes it for us.  Its a reminder of recent history, of earlier waves of migration, of discrimination and hardships suffered in search of hope.

Not all of what I have written is factual.  But all of it is true.

Note: I was offered, and accepted, a copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith
822164
I really enjoyed reading the history of the celebrities who lived in the Dakota. It's been a source of fascination for me since I was a teenager.  I really recommend it.  It is a quick read.
2552098
I like that the stories are short, but feel like in some cases that meant important details were not included. I think it would have been helpful, even being a life long resident of South Dakota, if there had been a map of SD in the back of the book with key locations from the book identified.  NOTE to author:  The Missouri River runs through our beautiful state...not the Mississippi!  :)  All in all, I enjoyed the book.  Many of the stories were familiar to me, but I enjoyed learning more details about them.
935355
A unique, fascinating presentation of historical photos, poems, drawings, and personal memoirs that creates a collage of the history and journey of a woman born during the Great Depression in North Dakota. Drawing inspiration from her Swedish grandmother, she pursues her education, establishes a career and raises a productive family, all while chronicling her life in North Dakota and Florida. Her reflections are heart-warming and inspiring. The photos are a valuable primary source documenting family life in America from the early 1930's to the present.
2633750
Like the author Alec Clayton, I grew up in a small town in the Deep South.  Tupelo rings true of my experience of small-town pretensions, social-climbing, and racist mindsets, and brings back the dialect and idioms of that culture that I had almost forgotten.  The author speaks broadly from his experience in Tupelo, Mississippi, but the details of characters are carefully drawn from imagination as well as experience and are multi-dimensional.  The reader follows the narrator's budding dissolution with the culture in which he (like Alec Clayton) is thoroughly embedded but finally emerges.
1963768
Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and Shanesha R.F. Brooks-Tatum have compiled a significant volume on American Black experiences in the Obama era. The chapters are laced with an internal conflict between recent black success and continued black struggles. That is, with the election--and now reelection--of President Barack Obama, there is a perceived legitimization of black achievement, yet at the same time the contributing authors reject the notion of a post-race American society. Ultimately, this volume is approachable and engaging in its ability to recognize contemporary challenges for African Americans while remaining optimistic looking forward. The work offers a contemporary slant on how African Americans manage discrimination and make sense of their identity as it relates to African American leadership in this country.  The consequences of being African American are reconsidered in this work to prompt the reader for a deeper understanding of the struggles involved racial identity.  Though coupled with the realities of racism and marginalization, the message of hope is resounding in this work and is consistent with representation of Obama's leadership.
-- Excerpt from book review written by Pamela Felder and Liam George.
3376429
This is the diary of Nellie Lee Love a girl born in Bradford Corners, Tennessee. The town is segregated. The Blacks call it Corners and the Whites call it Bradford. Nellie has called this place home for all of her life. Her family is much into equality for Blacks and other races, and are terrified when more then fifty lynchings done by racists are reported to have been committed in their area. The family is even more terrified when they learn that their Uncle Pace has been claimed to have been drunk that February 4th, 1919 and had laid himself down on the train tracks and gotten hit, and then had died. Nellie's father can't stand another minute of it. He decides to move up North to Chicago, Illinois. The move takes a while to adjust to, especially since the family were witnesses the day the Chicago Riot occured in the year of the Red Summer. This year was the worst for Blacks because Whites were fighting all over, but in Chicago, Blacks were fighting back. Now the Love family is in danger. Will the city ever calm down? What losses will occur during the situation? What lies will be revealed? Read this wonderful book to find out.
146734
Thad Sitton has written a beautiful piece on an almost forgotten chapter in our nation's history.  Fox hunting as it was practiced in US, mostly in the South, was adaptation of a popular European pursuit.  It was largely a response the land forms, flora and fauna of the US and diverged from European traditions in numerous ways, including the development of an almost cult-like worship of the fox and obsession with breeding the perfect American foxhound.  Interestingly, fox hunting as it evolved in the US, may have contributed to conservation being one of the core values of the modern American sportsman as foxhunters quickly learned that habitat destruction and alteration greatly affected their sport.

I recommend this work to anyone interested in the history of the American South, historic American lifeways, and the history of conservation, wildlife management and hunting in the US.
1203476
An important part of American history remembered, including harsh work conditions, poverty and child labor. Let the pictures speak.
1543099
This is a new book about a particular aspect of the Civil Rights Movement in the South.  Although it's a slender volume and has a modest cover, the author, Zoe Colley, imparts significant information about civil rights activists who were jailed for their protests against racism and discrimination.  She briefly mentions specific individuals' experiences (despite what the title might infer, this is not a memoir or oral history) but also focuses on the controversies in the movement about being arrested and then bailed (or not bailed) out.  Many of the movement's activists and supporters were middle-class people who had always striven to prove that not all blacks were criminally inclined and they looked down on people who were arrested. Now that they were taking principled stands against discrimination and were facing arrest, they were forced to reevaluate the issue.  Allowing themselves to be arrested was risky on multiple fronts - ,  their families would possibly feel shame or suffer economic retribution, the arrestee's future might be limited because of the need to admit to prior arrests when applying for jobs, college, or mortgages etc, their economic livelihood would be jeopardized by their absence from work for the duration of their arrest, they may actually be fired because of their civil rights work and arrest and, not least of all, they could face serious physical assault and death at the hands of the law enforcement agencies and/or other inmates.  Nonetheless, the activists came to believe that they were strengthening their cause by their civil disobedience and by being willing to go all the way and be arrested.  Initially, they were quickly bailed out but later the decision was made to not accept bail to prove their point even more forcefully.  Their longer jail stays resulted in increased fraternization with the other non-political prisoners and both sides learned much about each other.  A new urgency developed within the movement to look at inequitable justice in this country; that effort continues today. Although blacks and whites of both genders were arrested during civil rights actions, it was primarily African American men who were affected and risked the most.  The prison population was already primarily black males in the South due to historical prejudicial patterns of arrest and detainment and to risk imprisonment voluntarily was somewhat mind boggling. Thus being arrested became a symbol of manhood for many of those participating in the movement. It was considered inalienable proof of being courageous & committed to the movement and thus being arrested became almost imperative for activists.  The dramatic arrests and imprisonment of civil rights activists including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr, and many many others helped to bring the movement to the rest of America via television and print media and was instrumental in bringing about public support for equal rights.
4032414
Raised by my grandmother who was born in 1902 in Kansas,and who shared many stories with me about racial injustice, this story with the landmarks I know and remember, was an excellent mixture of history and fiction about our lives after Reconstruction, during Jim Crow, and the migration of Blacks to the North....excellent book!!!