Customer Reviews

Voices in Our Blood: America's Best on the Civil Rights Movement

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I was amazed when I first saw the contents of this anthology--had had no idea that so many big names had written about the civil rights movement. But when you actually read the anthology, a lot of these pieces, as fun as they may be to read in general, aren't really about the civil rights movement at all or only very tangentially, or are "think pieces" without much first-hand observation. The editor goes for star power over relevance. There's a Eudora Welty piece with some African-Americans in it (not sure how else it's related), a Maya Angelou memoir fragment (she reflects to a limited extent on race in her upbringing, but it's not really about civil rights), a Ralph Ellison article about Harlem (excellent writing, partly about Harlem as the place where Southern fantasies about freedom meet reality, but it's about Harlem...) Meacham deserves praise for trying to put together a literary and readable anthology--others about the movement tend to be full of "documents," sometimes boring to read, whereas this is usually entertaining. But he missed the chance to include some less well known writers who really wrote about events in the movement--Lillian Smith, Ted Poston, Robert Coles, Mike Thelwell, Gordon Parks, Paul Good, Bayard Rustin, Anne Moody...

This book should be required reading in high schools and universities across the nation. Mr. Meacham has done a superb job of finding the best and most moving writings on the civil rights movement. This book is a collection of such exquisite writing - to have it all in one place is a treasure. Mr. Meacham's editing is beyond compare. I am familiar with his contributions to Newsweek and I am impressed with his work here. This book is a splendid look into our nation's history and it should not be missed.

Jon Meachams's voices resonate like the music from a Bach chorale and transcend the whining cacophony of race baiters and hate mongers.