Jane Dailey

Being a history of the civil rights movement as viewed through the prism of America's aggregation of antimiscegenation legislation, with an off-topic coda shoehorning the rise of same-sex marriage around the turn of the century into the picture. The author proposes that said legislation was the linchpin around which the entire edifice of segregation was constructed, which may well be accurate, but it also allows her to go off the rez and describe the campaign against each and every manifestation of segregation, including such topics as integration of the military and Christianity, especially liberal Christianity's, endless waffling on the matter, in which I wasn't especially interested. Stylistically, her expository prose is acceptable, but I was offput by tics such as her relentless identification of each and every victim of segregationist terrorists as 'a WWII veteran' when applicable (it's clearly time for Non-veteran Lives Matter) and if potential readers are worried about her adherence to the politically correct style manual, don't: she checks every box and it's all here. Information abounds here, and when on topic, the book is interesting, but overall it gets two cheers.… (plus d'informations)

The author's exploration of the history of segregation after the Civil War and the struggle for civil rights primarily through the lens of the argumentation regarding sexuality, primarily the fear of miscegenation.

The author does speak regarding the situation of interracial sex before the Civil War but spends most of the time investigating how the fear of miscegenation was ever-present in conversations about race relations and the primary fearmongering platform by which to deny any kind of change in the status of black people in America. She also shows how even more "enlightened liberals" who wanted to see the situation of black people made better maintained the delusion that black people did not really want full equality and all of that and were shocked to hear the opposite was the case. She also explores how black people would attempt to frame matters regarding civil rights in light of the fears of miscegenation.

She follows the narrative throughout until the Loving decision, pointing out how strange it was how accepted it would be when the ultimate thing the fearmongering had been agitating against had come to pass. It was as if the civil rights decisions which came beforehand had made the decision inevitable.

The narrative is not always about fears regarding miscegenation - the author is more expansive than just this one part of the narrative, and it was important to learn about how it was given to Christian ministers to attempt to create space for the civil rights movement within the mainstream of Christian thinking. It was also interesting to see the last desperate stand to try to suggest somehow that miscegenation was against the will of God all the way back in the...1950s.

This is not a fun book to read, but a very necessary one. The generation raised in and before the 1950s still will often express disapproval of interracial marriage; as usual, white American Christians remain the least receptive group to the idea, and far more find it uncomfortable. It is deeply lamentable to see how pervasive a lot of ungodly thinking was regarding these matters, and thus it is all the more important for us to recognize it, confess it, and give it no space in modern Christendom.

**--galley received as part of early review program… (plus d'informations)