A non-fiction book about Jack Robinson. Or better known as Jackie Robinson. The United States v. Jackie Robinson is not a typical biography of a baseball player. They start out with him being a child growing up as the only black family on their street. His mother’s strength and finally Jackie’s strength in the military. Few probably know that Jackie would not give up his seat on a bus either and it lead to a historic ruling, too. Finally, it ends with some of his […]
Even when it’s about the women, it’s about the men.
Valley of the dolls is about three women and their path into and along stardom. Anne is a frigid woman from New Jersey who moves to New York and gets a job for a theatre-lawyer-guy. She gets proposed to immediately by a wealthy guy, but turns him down for an Englishman with glorious hair. He, in turn, dumps her because he’s an artist, and then Anne becomes a famous model for a make-up brand. Anne meets Neely O’Hara, back when they’re still poor. Neely can […]
A Short History of White Women’s Complicity
In Mothers of Massive Resistance: White Women and the Politics of White Supremacy, historian Elizabeth Gillespie McRae makes a strong argument for white women’s vital role in protecting and perpetuating white supremacy and thwarting integration in the US. One hundred years ago, woman began to organize in ways that we would recognize from today’s resistance movements. They developed grassroots campaigns reaching out to other women and encouraging them to organize, to write letters, to publish, to speak up and to vote. They did this, however, […]
This won’t tell you who she was, but who she wasn’t
Back before Christmas, I told enquiring minds that I was after books on interesting or infamous women. This book made up part of that haul. I have to admit that I didn’t personally know a huge amount about Marie Laveau before she was depicted by the glorious Angela Bassett on American Horror Story. After-show googling netted a huge amount of legends swirling around her – this book basically demolishes those legends although, thanks to the lack of real information available on her, it doesn’t do […]