Philip DrayCritiques

There's Power in a Union (the title taken from a popular union folk song) is the extensively researched, exhaustively descriptive history of unions and the labor movement in the United States. While this monolithic book is no easy read, long, complicated, and full of enough organization acronyms to make your head ache (just try keeping IWW, AFL, ICO, and UAW straight, along with their founders and key players), it is worth the effort to understand just how hard the struggle was to obtain even the most basic work concessions from employers. The things we take as given today, like the 8 hour work day, the 40 hour week, minimum wage, and basic safety measures to name a few, never just evolved on their own, they each required a fight, often lengthy, sometimes fatal, to be made into law, and that history, while vitally important, is often forgotten or glossed over.

Recommended by Hassan Adeeb

The northeast United States likes to think of itself as fair-minded and humane. Unfortunately, history shows otherwise. According to Philip Dray, who focuses on racial discrimination, the two largest slave auctions in the country were in New York City and Albany, the state capital. In A Lynching at Port Jervis, Dray has assembled a compendium of coverage and intrigue surrounding the hanging of Robert Lewis, who, as is often the case in such things, probably committed no crime at all. In this case, it is worthy of a soap opera. And Dray provides all the lurid details from the media and local historical societies – and more.

Port Jervis, New York was a boomtown of rail, canal, and manufacturing. It employed thousands at its peak. The town was named for the Chief Engineer of the Delaware and Hudson canal and rail line, which brought coal from Pennsylvania to ravenous New York City though Port Jervis. Some twenty trains a day passed through, connecting New York to Chicago. Industry popped up to take advantage of the strategic shipping availability. A lively press reported all the latest personal news about everyone in town. Crime was low, letting the town maintain a tiny police force.

On June 2, 1892, the young woman who ran a candy store claimed to have been assaulted by a mysterious Black man while she was reading a book in the park along the Neversink River, a mile or so above where it meets the Delaware River. At this point both rivers turn sharply south, defining the outlines of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Some boys figured out who it must have been and went after him. He was simply walking along the canal tow path on his way to a job, when they caught up with him and offered him a lift on their boat. They captured him (and his fishing knife) and brought him back to town. A huge crowd of nearly a quarter of the population of 9000 prevented the police from bringing him inside. The mob pushed, kicked and beat him uphill on Sussex to Main St, where they turned right and strung him up on a big old maple tree, somewhere between Sussex and Fowler.

No one was arrested. At the inquest in Goshen (NY), all these neighbors, who all knew everyone else’s business, which was how the mob formed, suddenly didn’t know a single person in the crowd of 2000. They recognized no faces or voices, couldn’t remember who said what, who put the rope over Lewis’s neck, who pulled him up, or who demanded his death. As Dray puts it “The mob acquitted itself.”

Somehow, those who tried to stop it all were recognized and exonerated, including the mayor, a doctor and a judge, all of who lived right where the hanging took place. It was the teenage son of the town’s most prominent lawyer who held a match to the victim’s face, confirmed his name and identified him as the perpetrator. That was the go-ahead for the mob to lynch him.

The police were both incompetent and ineffective. Only one officer seemed to at least try to stop it all, but was trampled for his efforts. Naturally, the worst of them got promoted.

As usual in these events, the mob tore at the victim, ripping away bits of his clothing, stealing his shoes and such for sellable souvenirs. In other lynchings, even body parts were torn off for later sale, and a big business emerged in souvenir postcards commemorating the event. Such was life in Jim Crow America.

It instantly put Port Jervis on the map, making headlines globally. Every newspaper had something to say about it, often quite ugly. Dray says: “A Monticello sheet served up the odious ‘consolation’ that despite all that was wrong with Lewis’s murder, ‘there is deep in the breasts of thousands of parents, husbands, brothers, and lovers—warm-hearted, noble Christian men they are too—a feeling of serene satisfaction that the earth is no longer encumbered with this animal in human form.’’

Another paper claimed the woman McMahon sickened, faded and died from the attack. The Allentown (PA) Morning Call reported that “Lewis hid behind a tree until the young woman came up and then jumped out and seized her … Some boys … heard her outcry and crept up on Lewis but he heard the underbrush crackling, and, jumping to his feet, drew a drew a murderous looking revolver from his pocket.” He then threatened to blow her brains out, and on and on with no basis in fact whatsoever.

Across the river in Pennsylvania, they said no one did anything wrong: “The Honesdale Citizen mocked the notion that its neighbor Port Jervis had to apologize as ‘nothing but maudlin snivel.’”

As for the inquest: “In their silence and collective mendacity, Port Jervians had chosen to stand squarely behind lynching. ‘They cannot force grand jurors to regard as a crime the wild justice of mob law,’ the (Middletown NY) Argus concluded, ‘when the jurors feel in their hearts that the mob did the county a service by ridding it of a villain too vile for earth. The law is as powerless to punish the men who strung up Bob Lewis as is the ghost of their victim.’”

Reading all this, an aggressive New York City lawyer named Rufus Perry Jr., didn’t want the town to get off scot-free, and sued it for wrongful death. He claimed $20,000 for Lewis’s surviving family, notably his mother, a laundry woman in Paterson, New Jersey. This led to more vituperative analysis, such as The Newburgh (NY) Press which declared this was: “A case where a negro is worth $20,000 more dead than alive.“

The leading light of Port Jervis was Stephen Crane, an extremely gifted young writer, whose Red Badge of Courage has never been out of print, according to Dray. He listened to civil war stories from veterans around town and put together a horrific book of war, without ever having served, witnessed or even lived in its era. He was not in town the day of the lynching, but wrote a story called Monster that is a thinly disguised description of Port Jervis at the time. It is about a Black man, horribly disfigured by a fire in which he saved his employer’s son, at his own great cost. The town rewarded him by banning, shunning and taunting him for his now frightening countenance.

Crane was an adventurer, to his existential cost. He picked up tuberculosis in New York’s Bowery the year after the lynching, followed by malaria in Florida three years later. He then went to live in a drafty, unheated old mansion in damp England, continuing to smoke all along. He died from it all while still in his 20s.

There were about 200 Blacks among the 9000 in Port Jervis, not nearly enough to pose any kind of threat to the vast majority of whites. Enormously little was written about them or their views on the events of the day or those leading to it. Ida B. Wells came to write it up, and even she focused on the soap opera aspects rather than the Black community.

And what a soap opera it was. Lena McMahon was a 22 year old candy store operator. She was an adopted child from New York City, and chafed at her domineering parents. Phil Foley was a good-looking drifter, who was at first approved by her parents, but later forbidden as a ne’er do well, stealing food, jewelry, not paying his rent and on and on. A judge in Middletown (NY) released him on his promise never to set foot in Port Jervis again. But as soon as he left the courtroom, he headed right back there, eventually working in a bar downtown.

Lena ran away a couple of times, never able to explain what happened on her disappearances and which her clearly bizarre, made-up stories could never justify. Rumor had it she had an abortion one time. The lovers were in the park by the river one day, when Foley had to go. McMahon stayed and read a book. It was at that point that Robert Lewis approached her, verbally assaulted her and grabbed her. She cried out and he just walked away. She drew the attention of some boys and other women, and the race to find Lewis was on.

However.

When Foley returned, he was not the least surprised by her disheveled clothes and minor cuts on her face, which was at very least odd. Rather than take her to her doctor or bring her to the police station, he soon left her there again and went for a drink. Although she claimed not to know the strange Black man, he seemed to know everything about her, speaking to her in very personal terms. It later turned out both Foley and McMahon had been using him to run messages between them, so Foley could avoid her parents. And most bizarrely, Foley had paid him the large sum of five dollars to rough her up. Several other Black men said they turned down the five dollars, fearing, well, a lynching.

As soon as he was stopped, Lewis commented on what trouble Foley was about to get him into. But Foley denied ever knowing Lewis. Then, all kinds of rumors about Lewis, who was a bus driver for a hotel by the railroad tracks, began circulating big time. They, naturally, made him out to be a thief and a rude assaulter of women, fired by the hotel for offending its patrons, etc.

The truth never came out. Foley finally left town after months in jail, unable to post bail. An anonymous benefactor eventually paid the $500 to spring him. McMahon tried to pick up where she left off, but drifted away, changing her name several times, giving birth and abandoning a baby in a hotel room in Jersey City (NJ) and dying 35 years after the lynching. Lewis was buried in Laurel Grove cemetery, but his grave is unfindable, probably succumbing to a severe flood that washed away many stones and coffins.

Why Foley wanted her roughed up was never determined. What his plans for them were was never determined. Port Jervis was soon bypassed in every way. The two railways became a very minor one, the Chicago trains soon stopped, and the canal fell into disuse. The final nail was Interstate 84, which allowed vehicle traffic to avoid the town completely.

Dray finishes the book with a lengthy analysis of lynchings before and since. There have been about 4000 of them. It wasn’t until the 1960s that prosecutions of them started to succeed. But what remains with readers is the shock of just how thin a veneer covers American society when it comes to white womanhood and Black men. Even in thriving Port Jervis.

David Wineberg

This book is certainly one of the best crafted nonfiction books I have ever read. It's possible I wouldn't feel so strongly about that if I hadn't known so much, but by all mines not all, of what the book covers. On the other hand, it was knowing so much already that helped validate how extensive and accurate his overall reporting was. I will also point out that what the author uses as his own resources in writing the book, helps give what would arguably be labeled just "history" into a strong impression of more contemporary "investigative journalism," because, among other resources, he uses the investigative reporting by Ida B. Wells-Barnett and a few others, on the myriad of events documented in this book. In doing so with Wells-Barnett, he additionally provides an abbreviated biography of that extraordinary person. It was also quite disturbing, beyond the details of the book, to read the justifications given for those many despicable and horrendous acts, to hear very strong echoes of their justification in the many much more contemporary tweets and rally speeches by the former office holder of President of the United States. This book was written well before that person had taken office, while I was reading it just as that massive storm on American governance was receding. It was a bit like reading a scary novel while actually hearing someone breaking into my house.

In June of 1964, three Civil Rights workers decided to investigate the remains of a church that was burned down. The three names were James Chaney, a young negro youth from Meridian, Mississippi, Andrew Goodman, a New York City college student, and Michael Schwerner, a New Yorker as well but slightly older than Goodman.

It was Freedom Summer. The summer when many college aged kids decided to take part in registering the southern negro to vote. This infuriated white southerners.

Many southerners turned to crime to help solve their problems concerning the negro vote. The Mississippi White Knights of the Klu Klux Klan took action and decided to murder the men who would "invade" their territory which was central Mississippi.

After Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner inspected the ruins, they attempted to return to Meridian, Mississippi--the headquarters for their efforts. The KKK intercepted them, jailed them in the local county lockup, and later released them to fend for their lives. This they failed to do when Deputy Sheriff Cecil Price caught the three men right before they crossed the Neshoba County line into Newton County.

Price along with several other KKK members took them deeper into Neshoba County and killed them by firearms. They took the bodies to an earthen dam and swore they would never tell a living soul. However, in 44 days the 3 men's bodies were found by the FBI in a massive search that was well covered by the media.

In December of 1964, the FBI rounded up Price and several Mississippian men, including James Jordan and Alton Wayne Roberts, whom were thought to have participated in the trio's murder. This eventually led to a trial that sent some members of the lynch mob to prison, not for murder but for violation of the trio's civil rights.

We Are Not Afraid is the definitive account of these murders.

This amazing story about Ida B. Wells caught my attention. I knew Ida B. Wells was a journalist, however, I did not know she was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse. This story has so much content and details that I did not know about. I learned and understand who Ida was. This story is associated with Emancipation Proclamation, the story can teach children of all ages about Ida B. Wells. In the story, Wells became a journalist because she has a mind of her own. Wells's favorite thing to do is read books, newspapers, etc. Wells wants to gain knowledge about what's going on in the world. The lynching of her friend Tom causes her to change her life up by becoming a crusader against lynching. As a journalist, Wells would write about how cruel lynching was to black people. She gains everybody's attention through her newspaper about lynching. Ida would travel around the country to speak about how lynching is torture and horrible among black people. In 1931, Ida passed away, however, lynching in the United States came to an end. I was fascinated by Ida's bravery, she was fed up with how black people were treated. Ida wants black people to have justice and freedom. Ida was very strong and powerful. I love how she looked after her younger siblings because she wants to help her mother out. I appreciate what Ida did for black people. This story is inspiring and amazing because Ida was confident as well. The young children and young adults would enjoy this story because of the beautiful illustrations and Ida's life as a journalist, teacher, and more. I want them to walk away knowing who Ida B. Wells is.

I enjoyed reading this book. It focuses on the life of Ida b wells but mostly on her accomplishments. My favorite part of how this book it written is that it compares in a way the things that were happening in society and how Ida overcame it. I think this book is good for younger audiences because of the simple language and it shares the reality of slavery and Jim Crow without being too graphic.

This picture book introduced me to Ida B Wells, who I hadn’t heard of before. She was a teacher (yay!) in a post civil war era who taught in a one room schoolhouse. Soon she turns to journalism as a way to communicate the difficulties of teaching with limited supplies. One line in the book reads “passing the exam was easier than teaching the students.” Her move into journalism and the lynching of her friend Tom, cause Ida to change course in her life and she ends up becoming a crusader against lynching. She uses journalism and newspaper to bring the cruelty of lynching to the attention of the nation. She travelled around the country to speak against the horrors of lynching. By the time of her death in 1918, lynching in the United States had mostly ceased. I learned a lot from this story and can’t believe I had never heard of her before today. There’s even a part in the story where she is escorted off of a train because she sits in a White only section, and with that being so similar to Rosa Parks, I can’t believe none of my teachers never made that connection when I was in Elementary school. It’s a sorry I definitely plan on reading as a teacher.

The title, subtitle, and cover jacket are misleading. There is too much 'setting the scene" and not enough history of hunting in America, e.g. descriptions of how two of the wives of Emperor Maximillion I (1450-1519 ) were killed while hunting, Battle of the Little Bighorn, trophy hunting in Africa, with no mention of Ducks Unlimited, introduction of pheasants as a game bird, waterfowl decoys, or the evolution of ammunition. The book is well written but unfulfilling for this hunter.

Really 4 1/2 stars.

This is a great book and you should all read it immediately.

Of all the really compelling historical figures in this book, the one that stood out the most to me was Robert Smalls. I cannot figure out why he is not better known. As best I can tell, there are only two biographies of Smalls in print: one, fairly short, by an academic press and a picture book for children. Smalls led a very full life and really deserves a full-length biography. He was born into slavery; made a thrilling escape to freedom in the fall of 1861; served the United States Navy with honor during the Civil War (he was the first African-American man to captain a ship); served in the South Carolina house of representatives and senate; and ended up owning the house in which he had been a slave.

My thoughts: A well-done picture book biography for young children that is especially good for teaching the period of history associated with the emancipation proclamation. It will encourage African-Americans to discover their heritage and it will enlighten all children in America's history and those who shaped it.

The author generously provides a narrative that is somewhat extensive for a picture book and yet the illustrations are abundant so that young readers and reluctant older readers can learn of Ida B. Wells. The topic is a bit heavy for typical picture book readers and perhaps might be best read to or by older middle elementary age students because the subject of lynching is articulated as well as social injustices.

Illustrated using a style somewhat cubist, the colors and actions depicted in the art work tell the story well and fit well with the text.

As a freed slaved and crusading journalist she was, as a woman and as an African-American woman, a real pioneer in the field of social injustices and employment of a woman as a teacher and also as a journalist.

This is a good book for elementary libraries and would be quite informative for studies on the Emancipation Proclamation.

DISCLOSURE: I received a complimentary copy from Peachtree Publishing to facilitate a review. Opinions are my own and freely given.

A powerful book that looks unflinchingly at the history of the lynching of Blacks in America. At times almost too horrific to read, I believe that all who doubt the heavy burden being Black in America should read it. It is unimaginable that simply being suspected of committing a crime, sometimes of a relatively minor sort, could lead to death by mob if you were Black. So many of the lynchings recounted in this book go beyond a simple hanging, and involve torture and bestial levels of physical abuse. It is hard to realize that lynchings were so common in the early 20th century that they occurred nearly every other day. We need to know this history so we will not ever let it happen again.

Really 4 1/2 stars.

This is a great book and you should all read it immediately.

Of all the really compelling historical figures in this book, the one that stood out the most to me was Robert Smalls. I cannot figure out why he is not better known. As best I can tell, there are only two biographies of Smalls in print: one, fairly short, by an academic press and a picture book for children. Smalls led a very full life and really deserves a full-length biography. He was born into slavery; made a thrilling escape to freedom in the fall of 1861; served the United States Navy with honor during the Civil War (he was the first African-American man to captain a ship); served in the South Carolina house of representatives and senate; and ended up owning the house in which he had been a slave.

This is one of the best biographies I've read, along with [b:Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman|10414941|Catherine the Great Portrait of a Woman|Robert K. Massie|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403395276s/10414941.jpg|15319151], [b:The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo|13330922|The Black Count Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo|Tom Reiss|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1337693786s/13330922.jpg|18538602], and [b:Columbus: The Four Voyages|11510594|Columbus The Four Voyages|Laurence Bergreen|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1311705071s/11510594.jpg|16446591]. I'm just assuming these books are historically accurate. But this one added quite a bit to my basic knowledge of Ben Franklin, including his personal opinions on the hot button political issues of his era, such as the Enlightenment, steam power versus electricity, and slavery.

I picked this book before Odetta, but read Odetta first, so it wasn't until I started reading this that I discovered they were done by the same illustrator. I really love Stephen Alcorn's style. I could honestly do with a little less dramatic symbolism (like when the text quotes Ida Wells saying she wished she could "gather my race in my arms and fly away with them," so the illustration shows her with angel wings flying through the heavens), but the style really is gorgeous.

A vivid, engaging chronicle of the American labor movement from its beginnings through the end of the 20th century.

Amazing book about appalling history...As a history buff who has also read a lot about the death penalty in the United States, I was surprised by how many of the stories and names in this book were completely new to me. I was also surprised to learn how wrong I was in my prior assumptions about what a "typical" lynching looked like--I had no idea how often victims were killed by means other than hanging (especially being burned alive) or how often the body was further mistreated even after death.

Horrific though this history is, though, this is also the story of the people and organizations who courageously fought back through campaigns to raise public awareness and attempts to pass legislation to make lynching a federal crime. Though it is easy to become depressed while reading all the lynching stories depicting the worst of humanity, Dray consistently highlights the best of humanity as well through the contributions of those who risked everything to resist lynching culture and put an end to "the shame of America."

In short, I would definitely recommend this book to all those interested in American history or in having a better understanding of race relations in the United States.

Update: 6/9/2012

I happened to watch the movie Mississippi Burning again recently and was instantly returned to the events of 1964 and 1965, the year I graduated high school. I had forgotten how bad things were. Random lynchings, murder, intimidation, arson; they seemed to be regular occurrences, our own Kristallnacht, if you will, except it lasted much, much longer. There is no question prejudice still bedevils us, but it is remarkable how much has changed since 1964.

The FBI has declassified many of the documents from its files related to MIBURN and, while heavily redacted, still make interesting reading. [http://vault.fbi.gov/Mississippi Burning (MIBURN) Case] This book is still one of the best summarizing events.

"Jordan stood in the road with his gun at his side. ’Well, he drawled solemnly, ’You didn’t leave me nothing but a nigger, but at least I killed me a nigger. " This is a book everyone should read. They use the murder of the three civil rights workers as a backdrop for a thorough and frightening history of the civil rights movement during the early 60s. The movie Mississippi Burning was loosely based on the same incidents.

"Mississippi Burning" or MIBURN was the FBI code word for the investigation in Mississippi. The situation in Mississippi was truly horrifying. Blacks were routinely murdered, beaten and terrorized with the full complicity of the local police. In 1958 a black professor at Alcorn (a local black college) sought admission to the University of Mississippi. He was of course denied admission and when the word. got out of his attempt he was dragged from his home and declared legally insane and committed. Another black, a graduate of the University of Chicago, applied in 1959 for a summer session course at the University of Mississippi. He was shortly thereafter framed for stealing 5 sacks of chicken feed and sentenced to 7 years at hard labor.
Mississippi had been targeted by SNOC (the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee,) CORE, (the Congress on Racial Equality) and several other civil rights groups for a massive voter registration campaign. Neshoba County, where the murders were committed, was so racially uptight that the children of a. mulatto couple "formed a covenant to live their lives in celibacy to prevent their blood strain from being passed to another generation." The KKK was very active; most of the local police were members. From the moment of their arrival the civil rights workers were the targets of bomb threats, intimidation, and harassment. The courage of these students knowing that they might be facing imminent death is truly astonishing. The list of bombings, arrests, and beatings between June 16 and August 14, 1964, for example, ran to 34 single-spaced typed legal sized pages. (The three murders were committed on June 21, 1964.)

It is also ironic and sad that the nation's ire was aroused only after two white students were killed. While searching for the three bodies many bodies of brutalized and mutilated blacks were discovered including, tragically, one which was never identified; that of a fourteen year old boy who was discovered wearing a CORE T-shirt. Black leaders became, justifiably bitter. One additional irony. The authors present substantial evidence that it was LBJ’s refusal to seat the Mississippi Freedom Party at the Democratic National Convention in 1964 that led to the rise of the black power movement. The phrase "black power" was first used at that convention. What astonishes me is that despite the mounting frustration and bitterness which had accumulated over the years, Martin Luther King’s nonviolent approach still managed. to obtain such a wide base of support.

This is an important book, although the incredible amount of hatred portrayed, will truly depress the reader. The Nazis obviously had no corner on the brutality market. Personally, I think Mississippi would have made a terrific place to store toxic waste. Or is that redundant.

Philip Dray, whose adult work on the history of the lynching of African-Americans in the United States - At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America - was such an important source for me, when I myself was researching the topic in my college days, turns to the story of anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells (Barnett) in this biography for younger readers, and the result is a triumph! Born into slavery in Holly Springs, Mississippi, Ida B. Wells came of age just after the Civil War, taking advantage of new educational opportunities to become a teacher, and stepping up and taking care of her younger siblings, when both her parents died in a yellow fever epidemic. Eventually relocating to Memphis, Wells became involved in journalism, gaining a name for herself as the author of a practical advice column. It was the murder of her good friend, Tom Moss - killed by an angry mob of white men, for trying to defend his grocery store from night-time invaders - which set her on the path that would win her so much fame: the investigation and exposure of the atrocity of lynching, which, during its height, claimed the life of an African-American every other day.

Since reading her autobiography, Crusade for Justice, in my younger days, I have considered Ida B. Wells a personal hero - admiring her fierce commitment to truth, and her willingness to endure hardship and danger, for justice - so I was particularly pleased to see that her story was being told for a new generation of readers, and in such an appealing way! Although a picture-book, I would say that Yours for Justice, Ida B. Wells: The Daring Life of a Crusading Journalist is probably best suited for readers in middle school and up, both because of its subject matter, and because it is so text-heavy. The accompanying illustrations by Stephen Alcorn are lovely, and truly emphasize the heroic nature of Ida B. Wells' struggle, although I did think that the "upswept" nature of many of the images (doves being released, wings seeming to sprout from Ida's back) got a little much at times. Still, that's a minor complaint, when the overall effect is so pleasing, and the text so informative and engaging. Highly recommended to all young readers with an interest in biography, American History, Women's Studies, and the African-American experience!

Americans at their ugliest. Compelling, outstanding history.

Last month, the legislature of the state of Michigan forced through a 'Right to Work' legislation, severely limiting the power and influence of labor unions in the United States. After Wisconsin's enforcement of RtW laws, the Michigan symbolic importance, as Michigan's automotive industry has been a center of labor for the past 80 years, and after the assaults of the Tea Party and corporate media, the future of unions was in doubt.

This volume is a broad survey of the history of unions in the United States. It starts with the very beginnings of industrialization in the 1830s and continues to almost the present day. The first recorded strike in the United States was that of women workers for textile corporations in Lowell, Massachusetts.

Labor demands and strikes became more intense during the post-Civil War period. A swarm of strikes in the 1870s, the 'vertical organization' of unions across industries, tough court battles against corruption, counterattacks, bombings, scab labor, and the foundation of the IWW in 1905.

There is a broad organizational survey of national unions, as well as biographical sketches of major agitators, union leaders, and intellectual supporters.

The FDR administration was a period of the greatest government support for labor. Although strikes did not stop against poor working conditions (see The Battle of the Overpass), government was instead much more accommodating to their demands.

In the 1950s, they were largely investigated for corruption and misuse of funds.

In the 1960s and later, some more unions became more closely tied to social justice and civil rights movements. This was one of the greater flaws in union history, that they had not taken advantage of this possibility earlier. In these past two decades, we see the kaleidoscope of labor's potential and its pitfalls - Cesar Chavez and Martin Luther King on one hand, Teamster thugs on the other.

After a political schism over the Vietnam War, the unions were largely shunned by the Reagan administration, and following neoliberal policies have proven to be extremely damaging not only to them, but the livelihoods of lower classes as a whole over the next 30 years. The future of organized labor must be more global, intersectional, in order to have any chance of combating the reach and power of MNCs.

From the title, Capitol Men, I was simply prepared for biographies of the men pictured on the cover; this book is anything but an uncomplicated compendium of the first Black politicians joining in on the franchise of American government.

Philip Dray does more than just recount and tally achievements during the political careers of these men, he provides much needed context of the time and culture to allow the reader to appreciate just how tumultuous the time of Reconstruction was.

Be prepared to have your knowledge of history turned on its head! Rosa Parks was not the first person to spark outrage over seating on mass transit. In the 1860s, Robert Smalls (Philadelphia) and P.B.S. Pinchback (New Orleans) both gained press coverage when they fought segregation. The first federal civil rights legislation was not passed in the 1950s. Rep. Robert Brown Elliott spoke as an elected official in favor of the bill in 1874. Two suffrage movements, one of blacks, the other of women were not always united. The likes of Susan B. Anthony were apparently more concerned with gender over race in the struggle for voting rights.

It is quipped that the South, in spite of losing the Civil War, wrote the war's history. With this in mind, it is no wonder, that any achievements of Reconstruction, no matter how short lived, are seen as bungling and ineffective. Capitol Men proves that common knowledge is not always correct; honest history cannot belie the fact that Democrats defeated efforts of Reconstruction and the Republicans through violence, murder and politics.

A thorough biography of Ida B. Wells life for the young reader to get a strong foundation of this activist.
Section on More About Ida, her life timeline, More About Lynching and its timeline really help the reader to understand history.
Use to teach perseverance, tenacity, telling the truth and overcoming struggles and injustices.

An understandable and thorough look at a very chaotic time. By concentrating on the first black congressmen, it provided a human focus to the book. That also means that those states with black majorities, South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana received the most attention. It's a piece of American history that is often skipped over with a summary dismissal but one that is crucial to understanding today's world.

This beautifully illustrated picture book biography tells about the life of Ida B. Wells and her campaign to stop lynchings after the Civil War. She was a crusader for African-American rights and made her voice heard through her eloquent writing.

Read more on my blog:
http://abbylibrarian.blogspot.com/2008/10/book-review-yours-for-justice-ida-b.ht...