Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900 [Paperback]

William Ivy Hair (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1986

The River Flows On offers an impressively broad examination of slave resistance in America, spanning the colonial and antebellum eras in both the North and South and covering all forms of recalcitrance, from major revolts and rebellions to everyday acts of disobedience. Walter C. Rucker analyzes American slave resistance with a keen understanding of its African influences, tracing the emergence of an African American identity and culture. Rucker points to the shared cultural heritage that facilitated collective action among both African- and American-born slaves, such as the ubiquitous belief in conjure and spiritual forces, the importance of martial dance and the drum, and ideas about the afterlife and transmigration. Focusing on the role of African cultural and sociopolitical forces, Rucker gives in-depth attention to the 1712 New York City revolt, the 1739 Stono rebellion in South Carolina, the 1741 New York conspiracy, Gabriel Prosser's 1800 Richmond slave plot, and Denmark Vesey's 1822 Charleston scheme. He concludes with Nat Turner's 1831 revolt in Southampton, Virginia, which bore the marks of both conjure and Christianity, reflecting a new, African American consciousness. With rich evidence drawn from anthropology, archaeology, and religion, The River Flows On is an innovative and convincing study.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Walter C. Rucker is an associate professor in the Department of African American and African Studies at Ohio State University --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 216 pages
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr; 1ST edition (August 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807113484
• ISBN-13: 978-0807113486
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #865,788 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a fantasic examination of one slice of race history, September 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900 (Paperback)

William Ivy Hair in this fast-paced, readable book accomplishes more in a couple of hundred pages than many of our more ponderous historians have aimed to achieve in far-bulkier works. If future historians learn to write and marshall their facts as well as Hair does here, the tales of our past will remain vivid and important to young readers of the future.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars history as page turner, October 1, 2002

By 

Einar E Kvaran (Ann Arbor MI United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900 (Paperback)

Hair's deeply insightful story of one man driven to take the most desperate of measures in New Orleans at the turn of the Century (1900) will keep you home and the TV off.

Sit back, fasten your seatbelt and go back to Mississippi after the Civil War. It's a tough place to visit, you sure would not want to live there. Eianr E. Kvaran

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Heroic and Mysterious Mr. Charles, February 20, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Carnival of Fury: Robert Charles and the New Orleans Race Riot of 1900 (Paperback)

This is a big little book well worth reading and well worth owning with a place of honor in the personal library.

Hair does a remarkable job of pulling together the obscure and little-known facts about "Robert Charles", an obscure and little-known historical figure who would have quickly made himself perfectly at home in 1960s America. More importantly, Hair's research and narrative provide a brilliant portrait of a period of American history, approaching the mystery of Robert Charles through a necessarily oblique but dead-on examination of turn of the century racial etiquette in the South; Afro-American attitudes regarding racism, self-defense, identity, militancy, and politics; state and regional economic issues; and the pathological behavior of the white victims of supremacist theories and beliefs. Although the question of who, exactly, was Robert Charles cannot be completely answered---if it could, Hair would have done it---the question of WHY did Robert Charles exist and die as he did is effectively answered through a compelling narrative that proves that history and its writing can be as exciting as any modern story of injustice, oppression, personal dignity in the face of ultimate destruction, and right beaten to ground by actual numerical, and assumed racial, superiority. Hair deserves to be honored for his detective work and meticulous research as well as his ability to make about two hundred pages do the work of some who would have said the same thing, and less eloquently, in six hundred. He should also be commended for refusing to let anything but historical facts and sound reasoning fill in the blank spaces in his history because the temptation to make assumptions in order to flesh out Charles' story must have been a consideration during the writing of the book. This is a small, well-written, rewarding examination of a historical figure and the times that he lived and died in. It's surprising to me that no one has made a movie based upon the book since it has all the drama, suspense, tension, tragedy, and action anyone could possibly hope for regarding a historical figure whose pledge to live and die like a man was a sacred vow and, perhaps, a moral lesson. For those who are aware of Robert F. Williams' place in Afro-American history, Robert Charles will be recognized both as of his time and ahead of it, helping to lay a foundation for the future struggles of others.

Considering the fact that Hair first published this book in the late 1970s or very early 1980s, I am amazed that there are so few reviewers of it. I fervently hope that the lack of reviews is not an indication of a lack of readers for this important historical work.