Customer Reviews

Mississippi: An American Journey

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4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

WONDERFUL! I read this book twice in two weeks and could read it again. This should be required reading at every high school in the country. Being new to Mississippi, I was looking to find out more about my home state and picked this book up at the library. Thinking it was a travel guide, it sat on my bedside table for a week until one night I picked it up and found everything I was looking for. Thank you Mr. Walton

This book is about the author, a Mid westerner, travelling to Mississippi to learn more about the state where his people came from. It is extremely well done. The author travels around the state, interviews many prominent and not-as-prominent Mississippians about problems, solutions, and opportunites for the state to move beyond its history of severe racial problems.
In the process he summarizes a lot of history, and introduces many insights about how Mississippi got where it is and what it needs to do to move on. One thing I, as a white Mississippian with a somewhat liberal bent, found refreshing was his not falling into the trap that many of us Mississippians do of saying that all of that stuff is old news and we have moved beyond it. Things are undoubtedly better now than before, but while segregation may not be legal it is still very alive in the hearts and minds of the residents, both black and white If books like Walton's cause us to reexamine some of our "truths" about the state, it will have served an extremely useful purpose.

At any rate, for one wanting to understand more about Mississippi, reading this book is a good way to do it.

Anthony Walton lets us ride along on his journey back to his Mississippi roots. A story of pain and survival, relayed through the voices of his parents (among others), is skillfully woven with history lessons and Walton's own moving poetry. A very readable and important contribution.

It would be impossible to define this book: American history, personal history, travel log, memoir, but only through this eclectic storytelling does such a brilliant and complex vision of Mississippi, and its place in this country, emerge. Anthony Walton dazzles on every page with some of the sweetest prose I have ever read, and an intellect to match, that had me re-reading sentences, and then entire chapters, and sometimes just putting the book down for a moment to think.

Mississippi: An American Journey is a meditation on the state of Mississippi, in American history, particularly African-American history, and in the author's own life (Walton was born in 1960, the son of African-americans who migrated north from MS in the early 50s). Combines history & autobiography, with some elements of travelog. Clearly this work came out of several years of digging into the past, personal + historical, and consulting many people as well as historical works. Good example of a young man getting to know and appreciate his parents, whose struggles made his relatively-privileged life possible. And this work is notable for its appreciation of the blues and its role in American culture - impelled me to dig out & play some Robert Johnson recordings!

This was fascinating reading, a powerful work! Found it more historical, less autobiographical, than I had anticipated. Painful history; clearly shows how deep racism runs in America. I'm generally familiar with American history, including the Civil Rights movement, but was further enlightened, and at times appalled, to learn in more depth about aspects of the history of this part of the deep South.

One fairly minor quibble - quoting Walton, pp. 163-64 -
"'The past', Faulkner said, `isn't dead. It isn't even past yet.' He understood, in a way that seems profoundly foreign to Americans, that a person is infinitely more than what happens to him or her, the specific events and places of one lifetime. Men and women are also the product, or prisoner, of all the things that happened and were thought generation upon generation before their births. Freeing oneself from this psychic and cultural web can take superhuman effort; few manage to do so."
I realize I don't feel this, the overwhelming weight of the past. So, I can't agree with this categorical statement. -why I don't perceive this is a different question...may be just that I'm a product of the dominant culture in America (I'm white, lived all my life in the upper Midwest; my parents were materially poor but college-educated so my opportunities haven't really been constrained by my background). Regardless, I don't like the implied determinism of this comment; I want to believe we're more free to create our own lives, than this would grant. The book does include moving tributes to the many blacks who've left Mississippi and found better lives elsewhere, especially the author's father. Claude Walton clearly had a powerful drive to better his circumstances, which required leaving his home state at the earliest opportunity. But his son urges us not to pass judgment on those who don't have this powerful drive to improve their situation, or are unable to act on it.

The author seems more pessimistic about the prospects of racism being transcended than are some of his sources, e.g. the white Mississipian he meets in Oxford (pp. 123-4) who talks about how at least some people (whites + blacks) are getting to know each other, e.g. through the schools their children attend, and breaching the barriers that have traditionally existed, whereas "In the past, Jim Crow was a monolith, everybody believed in it, or at least practiced it."

Finally, I disagree with the Publisher's Weekly commentator's remark that the book is badly organized - this is the product of several years of wrestling with a complex and challenging topic, and it's a sort of memoir, not a history that you'd expect to be in chronological order. The organization is loosely thematic, revisiting a number of themes (especially Mississippi history, the state's role in the author's family history, & the significance of MS for African-Americans) from different perspectives. When someone sets out to write this type of work it's up to the author to decide how to organize it - this material could have been arranged differently but who's a reviewer to second-guess this?

A very important book dealing with race and history. A must read for people interested in the subject.

HAVING GROWN UP IN LAUREL, MISSISSIPPI, A TOWN OF APPROXIMATELY 20,000 IN THE STATE'S SOUTHERN END, I WAS PLEASED TO FIND ANTHONY WALTON'S BOOK SPEAK NOT ONLY TO THE COMPLEX HISTORY OF MISSISSIPPI AND IT'S RACE RELATIONS, BUT THE PRESENT - AND HOW THE PAST DOES (OR FOR SOME FOLKS DOES NOT) INFORM THE PRESENT. HE WEAVES AFRICAN-AMERICAN HISTORY WITH THE LARGER HISTORY OF THE NATION AND WITH REMINISCINGS WHICH, ALL TOGETHER, SPELL OUT A SMART AND HEART-FELT PORTRAIT OF THE IMMEASURABLY DIFFICULT TRANSITION FROM THE DAYS OF THE "PECULIAR INSTITUTION". IS MISSISSIPPI INTEGRATED TODAY? NOT BY A LONG STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION. BUT WALTON HELPS US TO PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVE - ALLOWING US TO WITNESS THE HORROR OF THE PAST AS WELL AS HELPING US TO REALIZE THAT CHANGE - ESPECIALLY IMMMENSE CHANGE - TAKES DECADES, IF NOT CENTURIES. INSIGHTFUL, WARM, AND HIGHLY READABLE.

This is purer in its idea than in its executiion, but the story of an African-American man travelling back to Mississippi offers many interesting observations about race and history. I especially enjoyed all the quotes, excerpts he provided.

Walton's book, while wonderfully written, has several glaring errors that make one question whether he bothered to keep his facts straight on the events taking place in his book. For instance, in the opening paragraph of the book, the author crosses the bridge from Concordia "County," Louisiana into Natchez, MS. Any self-respecting Southerner knows that Louisiana has parishes, not counties. In addition, he talks of Charles Evers, brother of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, as longtime mayor of Philadephia, MS. Actually, Evers was mayor of Fayette, MS, which is quite a long way from Philadelphia. I enjoyed the book, but I found myself wondering how much of it was accurate. As a native Missippian, his family story tugs at my heartstrings and leaves me wondering if things will ever change in my home state. I only wish I could trust his story to be true.

This book may have been the most dry piece of writing I have ever read hands down. I am a High School student in AP english and this book was required for the class. I picked it up and ten minutes in i thought of shooting myself in the foot if I had to read anymore of it. Long story short i skimmed the entire book and I never read or looked at this book ever again. DONT WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY ON THIS EXCUSE FOR A BOOK!