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CompleteMartialArts.com - My Face Is Black Is True: Callie House and the Struggle for Ex-Slave Reparations


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Manufacturer: Vintage
Average Customer Rating: Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5Average rating of 4.5/5

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 323.092
EAN: 9780307277053
ISBN: 0307277054
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: 2006-10-10
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2006-10-10
Studio: Vintage

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Editorial Reviews:

“My face is black is true but its not my fault but I love my name and my honest dealing with my fellow man.” –Callie House (1899)

In this groundbreaking book, acclaimed historian Dr. Mary Frances Berry resurrects the remarkable story of ex-slave Callie House (1861-1928) who, seventy years before the civil-rights movement, headed a demand for ex-slave reparations.

A widowed Nashville washerwoman and mother of five, House went on to fight for African American pensions based on those offered to Union soldiers, brilliantly targeting $68 million in taxes on seized rebel cotton and demanding it as repayment for centuries of unpaid labor. Here is the fascinating story of a forgotten civil rights crusader: a woman who emerges as a courageous pioneering activist, a forerunner of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.


Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: The Brilliance of this Historiography
Comment: Berry's brilliance as a scholar is exhibited in this text. She not only introduces the heroine Callie House, as a significant revolutionary who served jailed time for her leadership in this reparations movement, Berry uses House's story as a foundation to report how former enslaved Africans were mistreated systematically. Through use of a plethora of the state of Tennessee records, scholarly materials and various other documents, Dr. Berry introduces the first reparations movement to the reader.

It was often painful to read how former enslaved persons were treated as freedpersons, since all 8 of my great-grandparents were born between the 1870s to 1890. Knowing that they were children when their parents were so sorely abused was a very vivid and poignant point.
Dr. Berry is to be commended for creating this historiography that not only revealed House's story, it showed how callous the federal government was toward Black people during Reconstruction, and that this callousness trickled to the vicissitudes of everyday life and toil, from healthcare, employment, shelter, and a quality of life that all people deserve to have. Five starts to the senior scholar! - Colita Nichols Fairfax

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: PRIDE
Comment: This book really gives one PRIDE in knowing that people exsisted like CALLI HOUSE. Whatever ones ethicity, this is a book which should be read by all and the educational system should make this be a requiremnet. The population must be told and ugly story of what SLAVERY was and still is in the HYPOCRITICAL united staes.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
Summary: Good unknown history
Comment: As a historian and lover of obscure history in particular, I have to give Miss Berry (who I met in 1999 at a historian's conference in Toronto and found to be an excellent conversationalist) high marks for the untold story of Callie House.

Callie House tried to form an organization to encourage the government to grant living ex-slaves (this was in the early 20th century when many were still alive). She tried to do this with many strikes against her, facing racism, sexism, and classism (she did not have much formal education). Unfortuantely, government harrassment tried to destroy her movement.

As mentioned, little is documented about Miss House's personal life, but being a Tennesseean like Miss House, Miss Berry does a good job in using her knowledge of the area and historical documents to fill in the holes.

However, in the last chapter Miss Berry links Miss House's movement to the modern day reparations movement. One can argue that there is a considerable stretch between the noble effort of a woman to get deserved pensions for elderly ex-slaves and the modern snowball's chance in hell Quioxtic endeavor to get reperations for the descendants of long-dead slaves, but Miss Berry tries to put a good face on the modern movement. She notes the 2002 reparations march, forgetting to mention that it was very poorly attended and almost universally dismissed for its outlandish and crackpot speeches and states that the reparations movement is mostly supported by the poor black masses (I have to disagree- in my experience it has usually been supported by a segment of black nationalists with some high school or college education).

But that's another story, I'll admit. In either case, regardless of your opinions of the current debate, this is a VERY good and interesting read.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
Summary: Another Racial Alibi Eliminated
Comment: Since the Civil Rights Movement it seems most "Whites" and amazingly even some "Blacks" have bought the argument that slavery and its legacy were so long ago that no living African-American could rightfully claim being a victim of it.

This book shows that argument as being just another shameless attempt to avoid owning up to our nation's original sin. The fact that "White" leaders right after the Civil War used other equally specious rationales to avoid paying the piper for their unconscionable crime is telling. Ms. Berry's book should definitely be taught in every school in our guilty nation. And broadcast on every so-called news show. I'll hold my breath until Hollywood decides to make the movie.

"My Face Is Black Is True" is a must-read for any American who considers themselves educated.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
Summary: Should be required reading for American History classes
Comment: This wellwritten and extensively researched book reveals not only the drive and persistence of post-Civil War African Americans in seeking reparations for ex-slaves and war veterans, but what can be accomplished with little more than a basic ability to read and write and a talent for organizing and motivating one's colleagues. Callie House is truly an American heroine and her efforts to help black citizens obtain what they richly deserved from the U.S. government, despite obstacles which would have made a lesser person roll over, should be recognized and remembered.


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