Grif Stockley
Ruled by Race: Black White Relations in Arkansas From Slavery to the Present
From the Civil War to Reconstruction, the Redeemer period, Jim Crow, and the modern civil rights era to the present, Ruled by Race describes the ways that race has been at the center of much of the state’s formation and image since its founding. Stockley uses the work of published and unpublished historians and exhaustive primary source materials along with stories from authors as diverse as Maya Angelou and E. Lynn Harris to bring to life the voices of those who have both studied and lived the racial experience in Arkansas.
Topics range from the well-known Little Rock Central High Crisis of 1957 to lesser-known events such as the Elaine Race Massacres of 1919 and the shocking yet sadly commonplace attitudes found in newspaper reports and speeches. Through the words of the most powerful Arkansans such as racist Arkansas Govenor Jeff Davis (1901–1906) to the least powerful, including an unflinching look at the narratives of former slaves, readers will come away with increased awareness of the ways that race continues to affect where Arkansans live, send their children to school, work, travel, shop, spend leisure time, worship, and choose their friends and life partners. (The University of Arkansas Press, 2009) Excerpt from Ruled by RaceWe are ruled by race in Arkansas. For almost 150 continuous years, interrupted in part and only briefly by the politics of Reconstruction, white Arkansans since territorial days used whatever means necessary to control and dominate black persons. Generation upon generation of white Arkansans, with some notable exceptions, chose slavery, murder, rape, torture, beatings, intimidation, fraud, theft, discrimination, harassment, and humiliation as the instruments of control and domination of black Arkansans.
Praise for Ruled by RaceOffering deeper insight not only into Arkansas race relations but race relations across the U.S., this will become the go-to book for those studying race in the South. Highly recommended.
-- M.A. Byron, in "Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Librarians," 2009 Stockley is manifestly committed to equality and justice, but as an historian he carefully weighs conflicting evidence and interpretations to produce an informed, nuanced account. -- Mark Newman, University of Edinburgh, in the "Arkansas Historical Quarterly," 2009 Remarkable for its honest treatment of white supremacy...Stockley confronts the subject without apology or equivocation. -- Wendell Griffin, in "The Arkansas Times," 2009 Awards for Ruled by RaceBooker-Worthen Literary Prize, 2010, for "Best Book" Arkansas Historical Association's Ragsdale Award, 2009, for "Best Book on Arkansas History" |
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