BLACK STRUGGLE: A History of the Negro in America

by Bryan Fulks ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 24, 1970

A textbookish run-through from pyramid building to the Poor People's March that contributes nothing new except what might better not have been--namely some gross disfigurement of speech (""It was generally thought better to let sleeping slaves lie"") and some stunning misinformation via clumsy articulation: ""In some cases the brutal beatings (on the Southern plantations) embittered a man for life, as the ex-slave W. E. B. Du Bois told about in The Souls of Black Folk. This man, who, as a boy, had seen his own mother beaten. . . . "" Mr. Fulks may--must--mean ""in the case of the ex-slave that"" but who will know it. Any more than, less critically but still indicatively, anyone will know that identifying Du Bois as ""a graduate of Harvard"" obscures the fact that he got his undergraduate degree from Fisk, or, not dissimilarly, that there were some fine Negro colleges when (in the 1930's) ""most of them were second-rate at best."" To the lack of any particular background in the field the author adds a fatal sloppiness and insensitivity in handling it.

Pub Date: Aug. 24, 1970

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Delacorte

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1970

Categories: NONFICTION