White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery

By Herbert Shapiro

Book Overview

We are taught that America is a society based on respect for the law and orderly procedures. That the Constitution stands as a safeguard of individual freedom, and the courts and the police are supposedly established to enforce the law. When a controversial issue arises in the American fabric, it is to be resolved not in the streets but through the democratic processes of elections. Yet, for blacks these liberal values have been turned into their opposites. The courts have most often stood silent in the face of racist violence or have turned their wrath against the victims, not the perpetrators; the police have protected the mob rather than the mobbed and have often either aided the lynchers or displayed amazing inability to identify them. Where race is concerned, legislative or judicial action to deal with controversial issues has often come late and been partial in nature, while white violence has continued to terrorize black Americans without hindrance. In White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery , Herbert Shapiro explores the depths of violence generated by white racism and the irony of the American association with violence as a behavior of black people. Citing the nation's political leadership, educational institutions, and news media as institutions that fail to educate Americans about the oppressive social conditions that have root in these criminal acts, Shapiro is able to expose the ways in which white supremacy operates within American institutions and the responses by black people in this powerful read.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870235788
• ISBN13: 9780870235788
• Release Date: March 1988
• Publisher: University of Massachusetts Press
• Length: 584 Pages
• Weight: 1.77 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Almost great

White Violence and Black Response: From Reconstruction to Montgomery, delivers on its title's promise--for the most part. I only wish that the author had shined as bright a light on the responses of everyday black Americans as he does on the responses of such black American luminaries as W.E.B. Du Bois, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. To be sure, the author includes Robert Charles' story, and adequately covers ordinary black Harlemites' riotous reaction to white police brutality and economic violence. But I think he could have done a better job of exploring average black Americans' responses to white violence outside of the urban context. That said, White Violence and Black Response is otherwise quite comprehensive, and better still, is eminently readable, despite its length and somewhat small type. I think it ought to prove a valuable resource for anyone interested in its area of inquiry.