My review of The Girls in the Stilt House is for the novel by Kelly Mustian that appeared in 2021. It’s the story of Ada and Matilda, two young women who grow up poor in 1920s Mississippi. The young ladies live on the Natchez Trace in a swampy area (that’s why the house needs stilts) […]
Tag: racism
Causes of the Mexican-American War – More Important Than You Think?
The causes of the Mexican-American War are, surprisingly, still a matter of some debate. Normally, that isn’t true of things that happened 176 years ago. Generally, historians can figure things out after two centuries. But in this case, dispute remains, at least regarding the events immediately preceding the war. And this dispute involves many of […]
The Orangeburg Massacre – One More Killing the US Has Forgotten
My last post described the sit-in movement that began in Orangeburg, South Carolina in 1960. Today’s post is the story of how participation in the civil rights movement grew deadly, resulting in the Orangeburg Massacre in 1968. It ranks among the greatest losses of life of any event in the civil rights movement. Events Leading […]
The Orangeburg Sit-Ins – Revealing More Racist Injustice in America
The year 1960 was an important one throughout the South. It witnessed the beginning of the sit-in movement. Sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina. They spread quickly and eventually included such places as Rock Hill and Orangeburg in South Carolina. What happened in the Orangeburg sit-ins sheds light on many key aspects of the Civil […]
Grace Lorch Helps Elizabeth Eckford
It’s unlikely you’ve heard of Grace Lorch. Unless you are a serious student of Arkansas history, her name likely doesn’t register. But when Grace Lorch helps Elizabeth Eckford in 1957, she changed history. Grace Lorch is a superb example of how regular people, almost unknown today, contributed to the Civil Rights Movement. The main event […]
Racial Exclusivity in Cotter, Arkansas
The idea of racial exclusivity is a simple one. Create racial homogeneity through coordinated and planned action. Just such a program was carried out in Arkansas in the first decade of the 1900s in the town of Cotter. While the events in Cotter lack the outright violence described in my previous posts about Springfield, Illinois, […]