Something Must Be Done: One Black Woman’s Story

by Peggy Wood

Despite Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and pervasive discrimination, a substantial number of African Americans entered the middle class before World War I. This was a life—little known to outsiders—of college graduations, formal weddings, and singing around the piano in the parlor. Peggy Wood was born into such a world in 1912. Her memoir is a parting of the curtains that kept much of this world from view. For this reason, Something Must Be Done belongs on the shelf alongside Sarah and Elizabeth Delaney’s 1993 classic Having Our Say. Peggy Wood memorably recounts her journey from Alabama’s Tuskegee Institute to Atlanta and the School of Social Work. From the South the story moves to Lima, Ohio, and Poughkeepsie, New York, where she and her husband led black community centers. In 1950, the scene shifts to Syracuse, New York, where Peggy Wood was a social worker and active as a campaigner for civil rights for more than three decades.

153 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2006

Reviews

[Judy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel the need to write a review since I'm the only one who has read this book! Peggy Wood's story is interesting but the telling of that story is lackluster and needed a better editor. I suspect that sitting down with Peggy Wood for a series of conversations would be fascinating. Unfortunately the book is too dry, lacking in details. Perhaps having to condense a life well lived into a short book will do that to a person's story.