Scan barcode
axi_on's review
3.0
it's very easy to forget how recent the civil rights movement was and how it is not distant relatives, but grandparents of modern americans who were active in this time. I think examining how these mentalities bleed through was very interesting.
I did, however, think there was a bit too much extraneous information about the modern families added in that didn't really add much, and I think the reading experience would've been much better without it
I did, however, think there was a bit too much extraneous information about the modern families added in that didn't really add much, and I think the reading experience would've been much better without it
jimbowen0306's review
4.0
As a newcomer to the US, I am perhaps more aware of the role of race here than I am in the UK. However, despite living here 2 years, was still at a loss a loss as to its' origins and why it occured here.
This book helped me see the American "South" in a new light. Gone are my perceptions that large sections of the old confederate south are your typical "KKK style bigots", but it has been replaced with a recognition that the racism that the African-American community experienced may well still be there.
Sure the burning crosses are gone but the "racism of the mind", the unspoken racism that most people are too ashamed to raise but which must still be presents among some, both in the North and in the South, is still very much alive and well in the US.
This book helped me see the American "South" in a new light. Gone are my perceptions that large sections of the old confederate south are your typical "KKK style bigots", but it has been replaced with a recognition that the racism that the African-American community experienced may well still be there.
Sure the burning crosses are gone but the "racism of the mind", the unspoken racism that most people are too ashamed to raise but which must still be presents among some, both in the North and in the South, is still very much alive and well in the US.
statman's review
2.0
This is a book related to the Civil Rights movement of the Sixties in the deep South of Mississippi where James Meredith was the first black to enroll at the University of Mississippi. I was expecting to learn more about the story and its context within the broader Civil Rights movement so I was a little dissapointed. In a different twist, the author focuses on the lives of 7 individuals who appear in the photograph on the front cover of the book. They were all Mississippi lawmen and in a way represent the racist attitudes of the times. The author talks about who this relatively ordinary men were and what became of them. He talks about their families and how and what has changed in the attitudes of the South since that tumultuous time. The book mainly consists of his interviews with the surviving men and their relatives and families. His point is that change in attitudes takes time and that slowly those racist attitudes are fading away. It is more the stories of some individuals, rather than a history of some Civil Rights event.
caroltp's review
4.0
I learned so much from this book that if hadn't known about that era in Mississippi. I would have given it a 5 (for content) but the organization was confusing.
tfredenburg's review
3.0
"On judgement day, all the slain bodies from all the fevered and silted Mississippi waters will rise as one."
I read this for a college course on Mississippi literature.
Many sections of this book are intriguing, particularly the account with James Meredith, his sons, and the descendants of the men in the cover's photograph. There are few things as convoluted and distressing as the cognitive dissonance found within white Southern communities--the way so many of these younger white men would say something that gives the reader the slightest hope that the arc of the moral universe truly does bend toward justice, and then suddenly revoke the hope with a slur or some other racially aggressive slip-up that reveals the truth.
This certainly reads like a pre-Trump era book (because it is), and it's important for current readers to keep this fact in mind. My class and I were tempted to say Well We Been Knew about so much of this racism-related material, but the truth is that much of white America was (and still is) ignorant to the truths in this book. On another level, this book is difficult to read when so much of our current conversations concern voice and WHO gets their voices shared. Much of Hendrickson's book is about racist people saying racist things with varied amounts of regret or self-consciousness. I spent much of my reading time wondering what the value was in reading something about racists when I could read something more enlightening by a black author.
Structural elements I would have changed about Sons of Mississippi are the length and its pull-quality. I was only expected to read certain chapters of the book for my class, and I ended up finishing it simply because I had spent money on it. If it had been shorter, more concise, and written in a more absorptive fashion, I would have gotten through it faster and remembered more about the specific people interviewed, rather than just about those who seemed most fascinating, like the Ty Ferrel or Joe Meredith.
Hendrickson did an astounding amount of research for Sons of Mississippi. It's quite an admirable feat.
I read this for a college course on Mississippi literature.
Many sections of this book are intriguing, particularly the account with James Meredith, his sons, and the descendants of the men in the cover's photograph. There are few things as convoluted and distressing as the cognitive dissonance found within white Southern communities--the way so many of these younger white men would say something that gives the reader the slightest hope that the arc of the moral universe truly does bend toward justice, and then suddenly revoke the hope with a slur or some other racially aggressive slip-up that reveals the truth.
This certainly reads like a pre-Trump era book (because it is), and it's important for current readers to keep this fact in mind. My class and I were tempted to say Well We Been Knew about so much of this racism-related material, but the truth is that much of white America was (and still is) ignorant to the truths in this book. On another level, this book is difficult to read when so much of our current conversations concern voice and WHO gets their voices shared. Much of Hendrickson's book is about racist people saying racist things with varied amounts of regret or self-consciousness. I spent much of my reading time wondering what the value was in reading something about racists when I could read something more enlightening by a black author.
Structural elements I would have changed about Sons of Mississippi are the length and its pull-quality. I was only expected to read certain chapters of the book for my class, and I ended up finishing it simply because I had spent money on it. If it had been shorter, more concise, and written in a more absorptive fashion, I would have gotten through it faster and remembered more about the specific people interviewed, rather than just about those who seemed most fascinating, like the Ty Ferrel or Joe Meredith.
Hendrickson did an astounding amount of research for Sons of Mississippi. It's quite an admirable feat.
More...