Jonathan Blanks > Recent Status Updates

Of course, this is a re-read. I read the book for the first time around 1990, but am doing a book read with some interns for Black History Month.

If I were to rate the book for impact on my life, it would be 5 stars. If I were to rate it taking into account his more repugnant personal views it would be lower.

But the book, like many American works, is important despite the author's considerable flaws.

Fifty years ago, the greatest Southern writer of his generation--perhaps the greatest the region has ever produced (apologies to Flannery O'Connor and her fans)--recorded interviews with black Civil Rights Movement leaders in activism, education, letters, and personal bravery. Illuminating read on the times and mindsets of those involved and one of the Movement's more enigmatic, older liberal supporters.