Review: Freedom for Women: Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953-1970

Freedom for Women: Forging the Women's Liberation Movement, 1953-1970 by Carol Giardina
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a look at the Women's Liberation Movement in the 1950s and 60s. According to author Carol Giardina who was a part of the WLM, the push for women's rights grew from the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s. Like black women fighting for civil rights, feminist women decided to do something and started their own grassroots campaign based on the work of SNCC activists. Women such as Kathie Sarachild and Zoharah Simmons became pioneers in Women's Liberation.

Giardina follows the work of these women, as well as influencers like Simone de Beauvoir to show how women forged a new path during a tumultuous time in modern history. The movement resonated with women worldwide as activism grew into radical feminism and consciousness-raising. Giardina also explores what ultimately caused the movement to decline and the struggles women faced from conservative opposition.

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Review: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is Frederick Douglass' first-person narrative of his time as a slave from his earliest recollections through his escape to freedom and a new life with a new name. It is a haunting look at slave life, where the people are treated like animals and property. They were simply tools to get work done and nothing more. Douglass uses his experiences to speak out against slavery, the importance of literacy, becoming your own person, and a warning to guard against unjust people. Douglass worked to earn his freedom on his own terms and became a strong leader for early civil rights.

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Review: The Myth of Perpetual Summer

The Myth of Perpetual Summer by Susan Crandall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tallulah James has come home to Mississippi after a long absence and estrangement from her family. The family she has struggled to understand throughout her young life is facing another crisis and it is left to Lulie to help pick up the pieces. During her trip home Lulie reflects on her past as a young teenage girl growing up on a pecan grove in rural Mississippi in the 60s. She is the 2nd of four kids in a dysfunctional home where her mother was constantly gone and her father was battling emotional issues. Her parent's relationship was tumultuous. Lulie's lone source of stability has been her grandmother who holds to southern manners and rules. Granny James, however, is holding some family secrets that could explain her father's erratic behavior and her broken family.

This is another coming of age story by Susan Crandall who wrote Whistling Past the Graveyard. It holds up against Crandall's earlier works but is much darker. Its overall message seems to be to resolve the burdens of the past so that they don't carry emotional weight throughout life. It is not my favorite of Crandall's books that I have read so far but was still worth the read.

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Review: American Slavery: 1619-1877

American Slavery: 1619-1877 by Peter Kolchin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an overview of American slavery from its beginnings through its abolishment with the 13th amendment. Kolchin breaks down the differences between the different eras of slavery: Colonial, American Revolution, and Antebellum years. There is also a chapter that discusses slavery from the white southerners perspective during those years after the Civil War. Where this is a somewhat small book (under 300 pages), it provides a very clear understanding of the different topics that were affected by slavery without digging too deep.

This particular edition provides a very nice bibliography and Kolchin discusses areas of slavery that have had little to no research / scholarly written works. This makes a great resource for scholarly writing.

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Review: Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie

Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie by Harold Schechter
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a short story about the true crimes of the Bender family, known serial killers from 1871-1873. The "Bloody Benders" was a family living in Labette County deep in the prairie lands of Kansas. They build a makeshift store and inn for lonely travelers along the Osage trail between Independence, Missouri and Kansas. They would entice these travelers into the inn for dinner and kill them, disposing of their bodies in the night. After a few too many people went missing, loved ones started searching and came across the abandoned home of the Benders, who had disappeared.

Schechter details the events that lead up to the discovery of the Bender home and the search of the Benders afterward, including the urban legends that live on. This is a quick read and is run to read as a "Kindle in Motion" that should be read via the Kindle app on an iPad or Kindle Fire to check out the fun moving graphics.

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Review: Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie

Little Slaughterhouse on the Prairie by Harold Schechter
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

This is a short story about the true crimes of the Bender family, known serial killers from 1871-1873. The "Bloody Benders" was a family living in Labette County deep in the prairie lands of Kansas. They build a makeshift store and inn for lonely travelers along the Osage trail between Independence, Missouri and Kansas. They would entice these travelers into the inn for dinner and kill them, disposing of their bodies in the night. After a few too many people went missing, loved ones started searching and came across the abandoned home of the Benders, who had disappeared.

Schechter details the events that lead up to the discovery of the Bender home and the search of the Benders afterward, including the urban legends that live on. This is a quick read and is run to read as a "Kindle in Motion" that should be read via the Kindle app on an iPad or Kindle Fire to check out the fun moving graphics.

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Review: Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found

Beneath a Ruthless Sun: A True Story of Violence, Race, and Justice Lost and Found by Gilbert King
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another stellar book from Gilbert King. Beneath a Ruthless Sun is the story of Jesse Daniels, who in 1950s rural Florida finds himself accused of the rape of a prominent local woman. Blanche Knowles, the wife of a citrus tycoon was raped and threatened late one night in Okahumpka, Florida. Her description of her abuser led local sheriff Willis McCall to round up every young black man in the county with the expectation of wielding McCall's version of justice on at least one of those men. Despite Knowles' claim that the rapist was a young black man, Jesse Daniels, a poor young white teenager was eventually accused of the crime, despite a solid alibi. What is uncovered is a conspiracy that included many high profile members of law enforcement and state politics, including then-governor LeRoy Collins. Jesse Daniels was simply a patsy. He was developmentally slow and had a stutter, but was smart enough to know the difference between wrong and right and to understand what was going on to him.

To conceal the cover-up, McCall had Daniels reprimanded to the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee, FL, denying him his day in court. It was an unimaginable sentence for the young man who knew he was innocent. He did have champions on his side, however. Besides his mother, Pearl, who never lost faith in hope of her son's eventual release, Mable Norris Reese, a local journalist, used her position as editor of the local newspaper The Topic to keep Daniels' case in the news and the forefront of everyone's mind. Despite threats and abuse, the two women fought every battle that came their way to seek the release of Jesse from the state hospital and to have his criminal record expunged.

Sheriff McCall was a notorious, racist man of the law of Lake County, FL. He was introduced to us in King's prior Pulitzer prize book, Devil in the Grove: Thurgood Marshall, the Groveland Boys, and the Dawn of a New America. McCall served as sheriff from 1944 to 1972 and was no stranger to controversy. He was feared by everyone and had his own brand of justice that spared no one. It is befuddling that he had so much power in such a small county that resonated state-wide.

This is a heartbreaking and infuriating story. You can't help getting sucked into the story and rooting for Jessie along with Mable and Pearl. If there was ever a man to be hated, it was Willis V. McCall. He was pure evil. I thought this was another page-turner. I enjoy King's writing and his way of putting you in central Florida in the 1950s-70s. I suspect this will be another award-winning book for Gilbert King.

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