Voices in Our Blood is a literary anthology of the most important and artful interpretations of the civil rights movement; past and present. It showcases what forty of the nation's best writers — including Maya Angelou; James Baldwin; Ralph Ellison; William Faulkner; John Steinbeck; Alice Walker; Robert Penn Warren; Eudora Welty; and Richard Wright — had to say about the central domestic drama of the American Century.Editor Jon Meacham has chosen pieces by journalists; novelists; historians; and artists; bringing together a wide range of black and white perspectives and experiences. The result is an unprecedented and powerful portrait of the movement's spirit and struggle; told through voices that resonate with passion and strength.Maya Angelou takes us on a poignant journey back to her childhood in the Arkansas of the 1930s. On the front page of The New York Times; James Reston marks the movement's apex as he describes what it was like to watch Martin Luther King; Jr.; deliver his heralded "I Have a Dream" speech in real time. Alice Walker takes up the movement's progress a decade later in her article "Choosing to Stay at Home: Ten Years After the March on Washington." And John Lewis chronicles the unimaginable courage of the ordinary African Americans who challenged the prevailing order; paid for it in blood and tears; and justly triumphed.Voices in Our Blood is a compelling look at the movement as it actually happened; from the days leading up to World War II to the anxieties and ambiguities of this new century. The story of race in America is a never-ending one; and Voices in Our Blood tells us how we got this far—and how far we still have to go to reach the Promised Land.
#184375 in Books Havard University Press 1999-09-01 1999-07-30Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 9.38 x .95 x 6.10l; .90 #File Name: 0674951913368 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Highly Recommended even if you have already read up on the topic.By Kate GilbertWell written and very necessary book about the history of the struggle over whiteness--a racial struggle; and ethnic struggle; a political struggle and a legal struggle. Covers the period from 1770 through to modern times. I read it in conjunction with the Draka books by S.M. Stirling which take as their jumping off point a "what if" in which white slaveowners from the South are enabled to take their racist ideology to its logical conclusion in Africa.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Excellent readBy AlanaStill working my way through this one; but it has been highly illuminating thus far. Lots of original source material is cited to show how the concept of whiteness has mutated as various European immigrants made their way into Anglo-America. Interesting; shameful and highly relevant to contemporary nativism.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. but that's no necessarily a bad thing. It's a big argument with important things ...By JSThis book will change the way you see United States history. Calls into question the way that race was defined in previous years. It's a bit all-over-the-place and wide-ranging; but that's no necessarily a bad thing. It's a big argument with important things to say.
