Tag: civilrights

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#BookReview: Unstuck by Stephanie Stuckey

Fascinating And *Southern* Tale Of Near-Death Of Road trip Staple. Stephanie Stuckey has led a life few Georgians have. She is a scion of a family that had become somewhat rich and somewhat powerful over the last century, whose grandfather once proclaimed (per Stuckey, here in the text) that he had made more money than his grandchildren could ever spend (but which they did, again, per Stuckey here), whose father had been a Congressman and who herself had been a State Representative for nearly 15 years. Both she and her father are UGA alumni, both from well before the era where the HOPE scholarship made such an achievement much more doable for many Georgians.

All of this is included here, but really, this is the tale of the ascent to those heights… and the downfall from them, as changes mostly made by others – as well as a few mistakes made within the company – led to near non-existence of the family company, fortune, and even legacy.

Herein lies a quintessential Southern tale of Southern family and business acumen, of a legacy built, nearly destroyed, and of one woman’s fight to restore that legacy to all that it had once been… and maybe, just maybe… even increase it for her own children.

The story is told with all of the grace, grit, and wonder of a granddaughter who clearly grew up living at least some of the history involved, but only much later in life finding out all that she *didn’t* know, including just how fundamental the black community was to her (white) grandfather’s success in the era of Jim Crow, and how mutually beneficial and respectful the relationships there were. Up to and including Civil Rights activists actively encouraging their people to stop at Stuckey’s, knowing that they would be treated with the respect they didn’t always get in the South in that era.

As someone who has also uncovered lost family history later in life – and who has lived in some of the regions this tale centers around, as well as, yes, having sampled quite a few of the family’s candies-, this was a story I could connect with on several levels, even as my own family was… let’s go with “not quite so fortunate” over the years, to the point that when I graduated from Kennesaw State University near the turn of this Millennium, I was the first in my family to have graduated college at all.

Overall truly a triumphant and hopeful tale, well told with the respect, humor, and candor one doesn’t always get in such deeply personal tales fraught with such sensitive topics as race relations in the South. Very much recommended.

This review of Unstuck by Stephanie Stuckey was originally written on May 24, 2024.

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#BookReview: The Ballot And The Bible by Kaitlyn Schiess

No Matter What You Think About The Bible In American Politics – You’re Wrong. This is one of the better books I’ve ever come across in showing just how the Bible has been debated throughout American history, from its earliest days through Trump, January 6, and even into how Biden is currently using it. And it does a phenomenal job of showing just what I said in the title here – no matter what you think you know about the Bible in American politics, no matter what you personally think about how it has been applied and should currently be applied… you’re wrong. While having perhaps a slight tinge of anti-whiteness here (in that the most heavy criticism tends to land squarely on the actions of white people), Schiess really does do quite a remarkable – and remarkably even – job of showing that no one is truly “evil” or even “uneducated” about the Bible (well, specific people in specific circumstances may be), they simply have different methods of understanding and interpreting it which lead to divergent conclusions based on both the text *and those extra-text methods*. And the sides have flipped and flopped throughout even somewhat recent American history such that neither can go more than a few decades without having to explain some prior interpretation from “their” side away.

The documentation here comes in at a slightly low yet still respectable 21%, and while Bible verses are cited throughout the text, there is no actual “prooftexting” here – verses are cited not to prove a point, but to cite which elements of which passages different groups were interpreting different ways at different points in American history.

Indeed, perhaps the only real valid complaint here is that I’m fairly certain this book could be a few times is barely 200 pages… and *still* not cover the topic in true depth. And yet, the depth it does manage to pull off in these pages is still quite remarkable indeed. Very much recommended.

This review of The Ballot And The Bible by Kaitlyn Schiess was originally written on April 21, 2023.

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#BookReview: War By Other Means by Daniel Akst

WWII Like You’ve Never Seen It Before. This is an account primarily of WWII and specifically a few particular people and their associates within the war – and these are people who you may have heard of, but likely never heard of their actions within the WWII period. As the description states, some of these people became quite famous indeed *after* WWII for their actions during the Vietnam / Civil Rights era – but those actions were originated when they were 20 years younger, during the trials and travails that history now knows as World War 2. As an anarchist who strives toward pacifism himself, learning of these people – several of whom I had never heard of before, and the others of whom I had never heard of this side of before – was utterly fascinating, and indeed actually eye opening, as even I had never heard of the philosophy of personalism before reading this book. Now, I intend to research it further.

The *singular* detriment to this book is that while it is clear in the narrative that the book is quite well researched indeed… the Advance Reader Copy of this text I read had barely any bibliography at all, clocking in at just 5% of the overall text when a minimum of around 20% is much more common for even barely-researched-at-all texts.

Still, even if the publisher doesn’t correct this flaw at actual publication, this is absolutely a worthy read and one that anyone who wishes to discuss the events and impacts of WWII needs to study in order to have a more complete picture of that era. Very much recommended.

This review of War By Other Means by Daniel Akst was originally written on October 20, 2022.