dreesreads's review
4.0
A follow-up to Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, this book is actually much more readable.
A very interesting (and disturbing) book looking at many of the people in the original--what happened to the adults, and the children as they grew up. Obviously, not all wanted anything to do with this book. But that is OK.
I appreciated the addition of landowners--from a small-time landowner like Bridges, to the larger holders.
The authors also take an interesting look at how the landowners blame civil rights and government assistance for blacks and poor whites who "don't want to work"--while at the same time refusing to rent them land to farm so that they can work. The authors also suggest civil rights was a direct result of the end of sharecropping and the beginning of fully mechanized cotton farming--driving blacks off the land and often into northern cities. This topic could be a book unto itself.
A very interesting (and disturbing) book looking at many of the people in the original--what happened to the adults, and the children as they grew up. Obviously, not all wanted anything to do with this book. But that is OK.
I appreciated the addition of landowners--from a small-time landowner like Bridges, to the larger holders.
The authors also take an interesting look at how the landowners blame civil rights and government assistance for blacks and poor whites who "don't want to work"--while at the same time refusing to rent them land to farm so that they can work. The authors also suggest civil rights was a direct result of the end of sharecropping and the beginning of fully mechanized cotton farming--driving blacks off the land and often into northern cities. This topic could be a book unto itself.
loppear's review
3.0
Depressing Southern poverty mid-century as cotton tenant farming ends. Landowners and tenants all trapped in debt and ill-education and changing technology elsewhere. Difficult background of selective observation, journalism, and exploitation of Alabama stereotypes.
More...