14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A life examined is worth living, September 18, 2003
This review is from: Ever Is A Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past A Memoir (Hardcover)
First, I am a native Mississippian who has lived out of the South for about 10 years. Coincidently, I went to Ole Miss and lived in the same dorm as the author but a year earlier. I did not know Mr. Eubanks but may have had classes with him. Ever is a Long Time is a great look back on activities of both sides of the civil rights movement. The Mississippi Sovereignty Commission spied on all citizens of the state and had 87,000 names in its files including Mr. Eubanks' parents. I have found the names of parents of several very good friends; Parents who were on both sides of the segregation question. It is a troubling story for a Mississippian to read and has led to phone calls and extended discussions with old friends. It has also increased my awareness of the times, our abilities to do mindless things, and to find the better way. There are some poignant interviews with past Sovereignty officials, a past member of the KKK, as well as leaders of the civil rights movement. These wonderfully display the frailty of humans, the need to cope, the darker side of man, and the ability to change. The passages about his children that open and close the work are among my favorites. The book is an honest, worthwhile read about cultural changes and the history of yesterday. (My copy did not have any pictures beyond the cover). Mississippi carries a brutal stigma regarding racial history. My time in other parts of the country have convinced me that the emotions of the 50's and 60's were not limited to Mississippi but rather widely held across the country. Mississippi, like other southern states, got the label and historical coverage and will always carry the stigma. It is a fading stigma that should have been widely shared across our healing nation. My heart gives it 5 stars, but objectivity demands 4 stars.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poignant, Admirable, Understated Portrait of a Sensational Place and Time, September 20, 2006
Rarely one reads a book that causes the reader to feel love for its author. I had that experience reading "Ever Is a Long Time." W. Ralph Eubanks' memoir depicts the struggles white supremacy thrust upon him and his family, from his white grandfather, who married a black woman, on down to his own children, whom he must introduce to their father's Mississippi.
Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s -- one imagines lynchings, injustice, heroism, sacrifice, history writ in blood.
Eubanks' memoir, though, is suprising in its quite and restraint. Eubanks's childhood was, in many ways, "idyllic," he reports. His parents were pillars of the community. He grew up on an eighty acre farm. He went fishing and climbed trees.
White supremacy, though, was an unavoidable evil. His father, a college educated professional, was denied simple toilet facilities at his work place. The family did not pave their driveway, so that if an uninvited guest brought trouble, the crunch of gravel would announce his presence. Eubanks' white grandfather's photograph was kept in the closet, lest it rouse questions, and trouble.
Eubanks grew up, and moved away. His sons' questions about Mississippi caused him to go back. In going back, he investigated the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state-sponsored spying agency that kept records of 87,000 of Mississippi's just over two million citizens. Its goal was to thwart civil rights workers and federal integration efforts. Eubanks' parents were included on that list of names.
Eubanks meets with a former Klan member, so torn by his own membership in that evil society that he breaks into tears after their meeting. Eubanks also meets with an unrepetent member of the MSC. Eubanks discovers that people he knew, liked, and trusted, including African Americans, were informants.
It was Eubanks' voice that was most attractive for me in this work. I never thought I'd read a memoir of life in the Jim Crow South, written by a black man, that was so affectionate, and so forgiving, of that South, while expressing appropriate rage and grief.
Eubanks comes through strongly as a very decent man. His book caused me to feel great respect and affection for his father.
It was a very worthy experience to encounter simple human goodness in a memoir of such terrible wrong.
Eubanks is to be thanked for this work.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating read, June 10, 2004
This review is from: Ever Is A Long Time: A Journey Into Mississippi's Dark Past A Memoir (Hardcover)
Eubank's autobiography is fascinating. The segues between his childhood, his investigation into the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, his trip back to Mount Olive and the historical pieces about the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi are sometimes missing or confusing. I also caught a couple editorial mistakes (duplicate words or funny gramatical stuff) that should have been caught by the editor.
Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading the book and feel I am coming away from it having learned a great deal about a time and place in history I am personally quite removed from. I read it just after having heard the NPR All Things Considered 5 part piece on the Brown vs. Board of Education decission so Eubank's memoir provided an interesting counterpoint.
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