A review by duckoffimreading
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr.

challenging informative reflective sad slow-paced

4.0

Henry Louis Gates Jr. delves deep into why and how Reconstruction failed to gain African Americans true equality following Emancipation. White supremacists, particularly in the South, evolved their oppressions through Jim Crow, voting attacks, lynching and an all out propaganda war including Sambo advertising and cartoons depicting false characterizations of Black men hellbent on raping women (when in reality, it was White men raping enslaved Black women). Particularly interesting was the struggle of the Old Negro vs New Negro...Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington's approach on rebranding or changing popular (ignorant) opinion and how to do that. Whether via the arts like literature and presenting more refined, Victorian era assimilation or through embracing the Old Negro culture as the same culture (Harlem renaissance and Blues/Jazz music) just with more rights, there was dissention within the Black race on how to proceed. Illuminating on how ingrained racism is since America's beginning and honestly - shocking at what was considered appropriate media in the day. The physical copy of the book includes lots of advertisements and cartoon examples of the negative characterization of the Black American as well as photos and postcards of lynching victims (Sabine County and Waco, TX especially shameful). Definitely not a light hearted read, but ever more important to know history given Trump's current America. The fight goes on.