Teaching Black History to White People (University of Texas Press, 2021) by Leonard N. Moore is an important book that joins the ranks of Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, Henry Lewis Gates’s Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, and James W. Loewen’s Lies My Teacher Told Me in assuring that all […]
A conversation about “Teaching Black History to White People” by Leonard N. Moore
“Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors: Stories from the Jim Crow Museum,” by David Pilgrim with a foreword by Debby Irving
Reviewed by Phyllis Wilson Moore Watermelons, Nooses, and Straight Razors: Stories from the Jim Crow Museum (PM Press, 2018), by sociologist, author, and lecturer Dr. David Pilgrim, is a ground-breaking scholarly work. In it he highlights and explores the impact that racist artifacts and demeaning images have on the maligned race as well as on […]
February Read of the Month: “Waters Run Wild,” by Andrea Fekete
Reviewed by Phyllis Wilson Moore Andrea Fekete’s first novel, Waters Run Wild (Guest Room Press, 2018) is a brutal story of the struggle for equity in the West Virginia coal fields in the industry’s early days. Before federal laws and unions intervened, workers were exploited in every imaginable way. Unions were prohibited, wages were low. […]
“Ashes to Asheville,” by Sarah Dooley
Reviewed by Phyllis Wilson Moore Ashes to Asheville (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2017), Sarah Dooley’s third novel, is a book with appeal for teens as well as adults. In the story two women attempt to create a family unit, each bringing a young daughter into the meld. The family does well together, but the outside world […]
“The Sound of Holding Your Breath,” by Natalie Sypolt
Reviewed by Phyllis Wilson Moore The title of Natalie Sypolt’s first short story collection, The Sound of Holding Your Breath: Stories, caught my attention. Just what is the sound of holding your breath? According to the young and newly married Marley, the protagonist in the title story, nothingness is the loudest sound in her home. […]