Idaho Civil Rights Book Review
 

New Sage Press
(2005)

This is one of many books that cover the incarceration of Japanese-American citizens and legal aliens during WWII.  One of the main internment camps was in SE Idaho, and this author spent time in that camp.  Here a copy of an editorial review of his excellent book:

"In 1941, Mary Matusda Gruenewald was a teenage girl who, like other Americans, reacted with horror to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Yet soon she and her family were among 110,000 innocent people imprisoned by the U.S. government because of their Japanese ancestry.  In this eloquent memoir, she describes both the day-to-day and the dramatic turning points of this profound injustice: what is was like to face an indefinite sentence in crowded, primitive camps; the struggle for survival and dignity; and the strength gained from learning what she was capable of and could do to sustain her family.  It is at once a coming-of-age story with interest for young readers, an engaging narrative on a topic still not widely known, and a timely warning for the present era of terrorism.  Complete with period photos, the book also brings readers up to the present, including the author's celebration of the National Japanese American Memorial dedication in 2000."

The National Japanese American memorial:
http://njamf.com/

National Japanese American Historical Society:
http://www.njahs.org/

St. Martins Press
(2001)

This book recounts the history of hair care and styling in the story of the African experience in the US.  After laying groundwork in African hair traditions and the difficulties of slavery, the authors describe how hair became an important symbol of class and self respect in post emancipation of Afro-American culture.  The book shows how hair care became an early route to business success for many from Madame C. J. Walker (the first black millionaire) to The Bush Doctor.  The evolution of the black community's feelings about hair and what it represented is followed from the hot comb and straighteners to the afro to braids and dreads.  The book is an easy read and sheds light on a little discussed and sensitive part of African-American culture and identity.

Oxford University Press
(2009)

This book was published in March of 2009, and is the most recent publication in the Oxford Press “Pivotal Moments in American History” series.  I found the book to be very easy to read, offering a unique portrait of the Nez Perce war of 1877.  This book explain the events of the war as well as any account I’ve read, and it puts the war and the entire relationship with the early white settlers in context with the Nez Perce culture and mind set.  I was better able to understand the reactions of the Nez Perce people in response to the massive change in their lives brought about by the coming of people who introduce different social, political and technological elements to their world.  Every NRCS employee in Division I and II should read this book.

The book “American Creation” by Joseph J. Ellis describes how the founding fathers guided our nation through issues of the nations founding. One of the issues addressed in the book included “What did they fail to do?” and Ellis suggests that the darkest shadow was unquestionably slavery and the failure to end it or at least to adopt a scheme to at least put it on the road to extinction. Virtually all of the prominent founders recognized that slavery was an embarrassing contradiction that violated the principals the Revolution. Ellis suggests that “slavery remains a permanent stain on the legacy of the founders.”

As the author states; “There can be little doubt that the late eighteenth century was the most politically creative era in American history. But the triumph was also a tragedy of monumental proportions because the founders left slavery intact south of the Potomac, from which it spread into the territories of the southwest as the slave population increased by eight times between 1776 and 1860.”

One interesting decision by Washington concerning African Americans was described as follows; “A sizable group of slaves and ex-slaves had joined the New England militia units that fought at Bunker Hill and Boston. No one commented on their presence until southern riflemen arrived in camp and questioned serving alongside black troops. On hearing about the complaints, Washington questioned the Council of War (his general officers) and their decision was; “Neither negroes, boys unable to bear arms, nor old men unfit to endure the fatigues of the campaign are to be enlisted.” A month later in December when many militia were leaving the Army (to attend to needs at home), Washington had a change of mind and he wrote to John Hancock, President of the Continental Congress, suggesting that “free negroes who have served are dissatisfied at being discarded and should be allowed to serve in the ministerial army.” Hancock did not respond to the message so in a back-handed way, Washington decided that the Army would be racially integrated. Though a few all-black units were added later in the war, most blacks served alongside whites and comprised between 6 and 12 percent of the American fighting force. The next time any American Army would be so fully integrated would be the Korean War.”

This book is very well researched and I highly recommend this book for its handling of the black issue during our nations founding.
 

Publisher Island Press/Shearwater Books, 1999

This book tells the story of conflicts between the Peabody Coal Company, the US Government, Resource Management Agencies and the Tribes and brings to light the treacherous behavior employed by some to develop the energy resources of the Colorado Plateau. The Colorado Plateau includes the area referred to as the “four-corners” region in western Colorado, eastern Utah and northern Arizona and New Mexico. This book describes the area and gives a history of interaction between those who already lived in the area and those who moved in or “settled” the area during western expansion of the United States. The majority of the story is about the past 50 to 60 years and the “big buildup” of the area. The book outlines the effects that the legal, political and social development and exploitation of resources in this area had on the indigenous populations, especially the Hopi, Navajo, and Ute Tribes. It also gives a good perspective of the impacts the same development has had on the natural resources and the land. The perspective of modern resource development, personal exploitation and treachery and the outcomes for the tribes and other inhabitants of the land is eye opening to say the least. This information helps the reader understand the long-standing conflicts, mistrust and disappointment these Tribes experience, at the same time the story is one of endurance and hope. The author is a western water and Native American law specialist who worked with the Native American Rights Fund and teaches western water and Native American law.
 

Publisher Island Press, 1992

This book is a definitive history of settlement and development of the American West.  The story is told by chronicling laws, policies, and ideas that developed during the western expansion of the past century and showing how those same “Lords of yesterday” still determine modern land use and resource policies and management. The impacts of using these older views are introduced. In telling this story, the author includes historic and ongoing impacts to the people as well as to the land. He explores different individuals’ impacts as well as entire agencies, governments, and populations. The reader will gain a huge amount of insight into the interactions of all the different philosophies that governed and still govern the public and private lands issues and how this shaped the settlement, and ongoing interaction between different ethnic and minority populations in the west.

The author is a western water and Native American law specialist who worked with the Native American Rights Fund and teaches western water and Native American law.
 

University of Idaho Press

This is an easy read and a fascinating story of a mother and daughter who walked from Spokane to New York City in 1896 in order to win a "cash prize" and save their Northern Idaho farm from bankruptcy.  The transportation system across America was crude at best and it was a difficult task, but they stop in many cities along the way and meet some leading figures of their day.  Not much in the way of historical documents exist to document the entire story, and some of the other reviews I read question the historical accuracy of the book.  Even if some of the book crosses over to "historical fiction" the event was real, and the accomplishment of the walk is accurate.  The story gives a glimpse of America at the turn of the last century and the social perceptions regarding two women who undertake such a radical endeavor for their time.
 

Bold Spirit Across America
 

Publisher Simon & Schuster
April, 1998

In 1927, the Mississippi River swept across an area roughly equal in size to Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont combined, leaving water as deep as thirty feet on the land stretching from Illinois and Missouri south to the Gulf of Mexico.  Close to a million people - in a nation of 120 million - were forced out of their homes.  Some estimates place the death toll in the thousands.  The Red Cross fed nearly 700,000 refugees for months.  Rising Tide is the story of this forgotten event, the greatest natural disaster this country has ever known.  But it is not simply a tale of disaster.  The flood transformed part of the nation and had a major cultural and political impact on the rest.  Rising Tide is an American epic about science, race, honor, politics, and society.  Rising Tide begins in the 19th century, when the first serious attempts to control the river began.  From the engineers and the dominant families in the Delta to the New Orleans elite, Rising Tide tells how the flood changed the face of America and laid the groundwork for the New Deal. (Especially interesting and relevant considering the recent hurricane impact to the south.)
 

A Pulitzer Prize winning book which has been hailed as the most masterful story ever told of the American civil rights movement, Parting the Waters is destined to endure for generations.  Taylor Branch provides an unsurpassed portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s rise to greatness and illuminates the stunning courage and private conflict, the deals, maneuvers, betrayals, and rivalries that determined history behind closed doors, at boycotts and sit-ins, on bloody freedom rides, and through siege and murder.  Epic in scope and impact, Branch's chronicle definitively captures one of the nation's most crucial passages.
 

A sequel to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Parting the Waters, this second volume of a trilogy about the civil rights era re-creates all the factionalism, blackmail, hatred, and violence that dimmed Martin Luther King, Jr.'s vision of nonviolent integration.  Profiling historic characters such as Malcolm X and J. Edgar Hoover, Branch takes you inside the explosive dramas that rattled every American institution from the Presidency to the FBI to the local pulpits.
 

At Canaan's Edge concludes America in the King Years, a three-volume history that will endure as a masterpiece of storytelling on American race, violence, and democracy.  In At Canaan's Edge, King and his movement stand at the zenith of America's defining story, one decade into an epic struggle for the promises of democracy.