We Ask Only a Fair Trial

We Ask Only a Fair Trial
Author: Darrel E. Bigham
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1987
Genre: History
ISBN:

"Darrel Bigham's history of the black community of Evansville [is] a first-rate contribution to the literature of black urban history. It thoroughly surveys all aspects of the black community -- economic, social, and political -- and additionaly provides a valuable comparative framaework for the understanding of black occupations and family structure." -- Kenneth L. Kusmer.

On Jordan's Banks

On Jordan's Banks
Author: Darrel E. Bigham
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
Total Pages: 607
Release: 2021-12-14
Genre: History
ISBN: 0813188318

The story of the Ohio River and its settlements are an integral part of American history, particularly during the country's westward expansion. The vibrant African American communities along the Ohio's banks, however, have rarely been studied in depth. Blacks have lived in the Ohio River Valley since the late eighteenth century, and since the river divided the free labor North and the slave labor South, black communities faced unique challenges. In On Jordan's Banks, Darrel E. Bigham examines the lives of African Americans in the counties along the northern and southern banks of the Ohio River both before and in the years directly following the Civil War. Gleaning material from biographies and primary sources written as early as the 1860s, as well as public records, Bigham separates historical truth from the legends that grew up surrounding these communities. The Ohio River may have separated freedom and slavery, but it was not a barrier to the racial prejudice in the region. Bigham compares early black communities on the northern shore with their southern counterparts, noting that many similarities existed despite the fact that the Roebling Suspension Bridge, constructed in 1866 at Cincinnati, was the first bridge to join the shores. Free blacks in the lower Midwest had difficulty finding employment and adequate housing. Education for their children was severely restricted if not completely forbidden, and blacks could neither vote nor testify against whites in court. Indiana and Illinois passed laws to prevent black migrants from settling within their borders, and blacks already living in those states were pressured to leave. Despite these challenges, black river communities continued to thrive during slavery, after emancipation, and throughout the Jim Crow era. Families were established despite forced separations and the lack of legally recognized marriages. Blacks were subjected to intimidation and violence on both shores and were denied even the most basic state-supported services. As a result, communities were left to devise their own strategies for preventing homelessness, disease, and unemployment. Bigham chronicles the lives of blacks in small river towns and urban centers alike and shows how family, community, and education were central to their development as free citizens. These local histories and life stories are an important part of understanding the evolution of race relations in a critical American region. On Jordan's Banks documents the developing patterns of employment, housing, education, and religious and cultural life that would later shape African American communities during the Jim Crow era and well into the twentieth century.

We Ask Only a Fair Trial

We Ask Only a Fair Trial
Author: Darrel E. Bigham
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1987
Genre: History
ISBN:

"Darrel Bigham's history of the black community of Evansville [is] a first-rate contribution to the literature of black urban history. It thoroughly surveys all aspects of the black community -- economic, social, and political -- and additionaly provides a valuable comparative framaework for the understanding of black occupations and family structure." -- Kenneth L. Kusmer.

American Apartheid

American Apartheid
Author: Douglas S. Massey
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 312
Release: 1998-07-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0674251539

This powerful and disturbing book clearly links persistent poverty among blacks in the United States to the unparalleled degree of deliberate segregation they experience in American cities. American Apartheid shows how the black ghetto was created by whites during the first half of the twentieth century in order to isolate growing urban black populations. It goes on to show that, despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968, segregation is perpetuated today through an interlocking set of individual actions, institutional practices, and governmental policies. In some urban areas the degree of black segregation is so intense and occurs in so many dimensions simultaneously that it amounts to "hypersegregation." The authors demonstrate that this systematic segregation of African Americans leads inexorably to the creation of underclass communities during periods of economic downturn. Under conditions of extreme segregation, any increase in the overall rate of black poverty yields a marked increase in the geographic concentration of indigence and the deterioration of social and economic conditions in black communities. As ghetto residents adapt to this increasingly harsh environment under a climate of racial isolation, they evolve attitudes, behaviors, and practices that further marginalize their neighborhoods and undermine their chances of success in mainstream American society. This book is a sober challenge to those who argue that race is of declining significance in the United States today.

The Parisian

The Parisian
Author: Isabella Hammad
Publisher: Grove Press
Total Pages: 640
Release: 2019-04-09
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802147100

WINNER OF THE SUE KAUFMAN PRIZE FOR FICTION WINNER OF A BETTY TRASK AWARD WINNER OF A PALESTINE BOOK AWARD National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 Honoree “Superb . . . The Parisian makes history, and its actors, live once again.”—Boston Globe A masterful debut novel by Plimpton Prize winner Isabella Hammad, The Parisian illuminates a pivotal period of Palestinian history through the journey and romances of one young man, from his studies in France during World War I to his return to Palestine at the dawn of its battle for independence. Midhat Kamal is the son of a wealthy textile merchant from Nablus, a town in Ottoman Palestine. A dreamer, a romantic, an aesthete, in 1914 he leaves to study medicine in France, and falls in love. When Midhat returns to Nablus to find it under British rule, and the entire region erupting with nationalist fervor, he must find a way to cope with his conflicting loyalties and the expectations of his community. The story of Midhat’s life develops alongside the idea of a nation, as he and those close to him confront what it means to strive for independence in a world that seems on the verge of falling apart. Against a landscape of political change that continues to define the Middle East, The Parisian explores questions of power and identity, enduring love, and the uncanny ability of the past to disrupt the present. Lush and immersive, and devastating in its power, The Parisian is an elegant, richly-imagined debut from a dazzling new voice in fiction.