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We Got By: A Black Family’s Journey in the Heartland
Life along the color line in rural Ohio was hard. Being Black often meant feeling frightened and alone. For a family like Ric S. Sheffield’s, examining this reality closely meant confronting challenges and tragedies that often felt overwhelming, even as their odyssey also included the joyful and inspiring. Navigating day-to-day existence in a world where trusting white neighbors required a careful mixture of caution and faith, Sheffield and his kin existed in a space where they were both seen and unseen.
Spanning four generations and assessing the legacies of traumatic events (arrests, murders, suicide) that are inextricable from the racial dynamics of the small community his family called home, this gripping memoir is a heartfelt, clear-eyed, and rare chronicle of Black life in the rural Midwest. Experiencing the burden of racism among people who refused to accept that such a thing existed only made the isolation feel that much worse to Sheffield and his relatives. And yet, they overcame the obstacles and managed to they got by.
Spanning four generations and assessing the legacies of traumatic events (arrests, murders, suicide) that are inextricable from the racial dynamics of the small community his family called home, this gripping memoir is a heartfelt, clear-eyed, and rare chronicle of Black life in the rural Midwest. Experiencing the burden of racism among people who refused to accept that such a thing existed only made the isolation feel that much worse to Sheffield and his relatives. And yet, they overcame the obstacles and managed to they got by.
216 pages, Paperback
Published August 22, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 31, 2023
I am so appreciative the author wrote this book. It challenged me and was thought-provoking to say the least. An inside look of a local family and their journey through time and generations.
November 21, 2023
The family history chronicled in this book is fascinating, heartbreaking, humorous, and human. As you read you want to know everything about these people. This would be enough to make "We Got By" worth reading. However, there is much more to the story.
The author chronicles how his family was segregated from other parts of society in a way that I hadn't seen before. He shows it a matter-of-fact way as part of everyday life. He clearly relates how the overt and legal segregation affected his family's daily lives. At the same time, he illustrates the ways that racism seeps into the minds of people who mean well. He shows everyone as human beings; some good some bad.
There is very little complaining about the injustice of the system. There is no pontificating. Somehow, this highlights the damage of discrimination and racism in a way that stands out stronger than any other book I've read on the subject.
The author chronicles how his family was segregated from other parts of society in a way that I hadn't seen before. He shows it a matter-of-fact way as part of everyday life. He clearly relates how the overt and legal segregation affected his family's daily lives. At the same time, he illustrates the ways that racism seeps into the minds of people who mean well. He shows everyone as human beings; some good some bad.
There is very little complaining about the injustice of the system. There is no pontificating. Somehow, this highlights the damage of discrimination and racism in a way that stands out stronger than any other book I've read on the subject.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews