Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
(RAW Rating: 4.5) One of Many Long Hot Summers of the Sixties , August 15, 2008
IT WAS NEVER ABOUT A HOT DOG AND A COKE delivers the expected, and the unexpected, about one incident of many staged sit-ins across America, back when the vast majority of America's black citizens lived marginalized lives at the hands of racial hatred and Jim Crow laws.
With boldness and forthrightness, Rodney L. Hurst Sr. tells the story of his own active involvement in the business at hand of tearing down America's racial barriers, even if it meant only one eatery at a time. Along with present company, he knew that fighting, threatening, harassing, and demanding would never work. It was the way white America got what they wanted, and black America had to show that it was better than that. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s message was one of passive resistance, and it was followed like clockwork throughout the nation.
One of those acts came by the town of Jacksonville, Florida, and directly involved Mr. Hurst himself. He begins the book by talking about his early days of growing up in racially segregated schools and neatly brings us into the fold of the Civil Rights Movement itself and how he came to be involved in it. He also talks about the one "news item of the year" that, though it should have made headlines, was relegated to the Black Star Edition of The Florida Times-Union.
In a place called Hemming Park were several white men wearing Confederate uniforms and carrying ax handles with Confederate flags taped to them. A sign taped to a truck said "Free Ax Handles" as well as ax handles that were laid out in the open in bundles against the park's bushes and shrubbery. As the black youth gathered and prepared to do their usual sit-in work, they were warned of ongoing activities at Hemming Park and told that they could expect elevated trouble that day.
Instead of going to Woolworth's, however, the youth group took a detour to W. T. Grants, about three blocks away from Hemming. After Grant's was closed down, they walked down the street only to see an angry mob swinging ax handles and baseball bats, charging directly at them. A news reporter filming the mob scene was knocked off his car by a wielder of one of the weapons.
The mob attacked every Black person within their reach, even those who had not participated in the sit-ins or demonstrations. The September 12 issue of Life magazine showed the world what The Florida Times-Union would not - a young man, a high school football star by the name of Charlie Griffin, in a blood-drenched shirt, beaten by the terrorists who surrounded him - simply for trying to defend himself.
In the end, IT WAS NEVER ABOUT A HOT DOG AND A COKE embodies the lackadaisical mentalities of the New Millennium youth who easily forget the push for civil rights from which they now benefit. Hurst emphatically drives home the point that it is not the "past" more than it is a part of why we are where we are today. It was not about eating and drinking, the freedom fighters were not on the streets starving to death. It was about what we would call today, "the principle of the thing." In summary, the author reminds us that "Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
The stories must be embraced so there will never again be a repetition of a history that was one of the darkest hours that America has never known. Though Jacksonville's Ax Handle Saturday was Hurst's most vivid memory of a near-brush with death, the non-physical fight that Hurst and many others faced made yet one more dent in an America where they were free, but not experiencing true freedom.
Hurst repeats the lesson "Freedom is not free" throughout the theme of the book, a very well-written, well-edited story that help us to understand the ongoing struggles of racism that must still be attacked in this hour, 40 years after the death of Dr. King. The idea, per the author, is not to be racially divisive or to live in the past, but to make certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that America knows and understands that its black citizens will never again be subjected to legalized abuse.
The book ends with a fitting tribute to Rutledge Henry Pearson, the author's mentor and inspiration, and an American History teacher whose influence on Hurst would span the length of his own life. It was from the lessons Hurst learned that his reading public receives the message to "Keep the Faith and Never Forget the Struggle." He encourages those with similar and same stories to tell and to re-tell them while they still can. Those who deal with nouveau racism must remember that at one time, the struggle came with an unwritten death warrant.
It's all downhill from here.
Reviewed by Marjani
for The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
It Was Never About a Hotdog and a Coke, July 20, 2008
I found Mr. Hursts account of his experiences during the the civil rights struggle in Jacksonville, Fl during the early 1960's to be the most compelling, riveting, and accurate that I have ever read. It forces you to remember where you were and what you were doing on those dates and times. Excellent! A must Read!!
Allen F. Nash
Book Investigator
Ocala, Fl.
|
|
|
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This book is a must read!, June 3, 2008
We have a myth in this country, propagated perhaps by an exaggerated faith in the nature of our ineluctable liberties, and our much vaunted "free press." The myth says that the truth is something that has natural buoyancy, and that given the slightest opportunity it will rise of its own accord. But sometimes painful truths are suppressed by the media to preserve the comfort level of the status quo, and strenuous efforts by courageous people are required to bring it forward into the light. Rodney Hurst's powerful new book, It was never just about a Hot Dog and a Coke focuses on just such a struggle: the struggle to reveal the truth about the events that led to a dark and shameful moment in American history, and a transformation of how America viewed segregation in the south.
On August 27th of 1960, more than two hundred white segregationists armed with axe handles and baseball bats attacked 35 unarmed black teenage members of the Jacksonville Youth Council NAACP as they sat peacefully at a Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. This horrific and shameful attack, designed to prevent black people from being seated and served, received virtually no coverage from the major media in the Jacksonville area, and only surfaced in the national news by virtue of the strenuous efforts of the local NAACP, black news papers and the determination of the black community. Jacksonville police did nothing to prevent the attack, and in fact, encouraged it. The attack triggered serious violence between whites and blacks in the Jacksonville area, and came close to triggering serious armed conflict. One of Hurt's themes is that irrational hatred and prejudice can only be preserved in social institutions when vital facts are suppressed, and ignorance is preserved. Newspapers and other media of the white community in Jacksonville, could have reported the truth about the attack, what lead up to it, and what followed it. They could have tried to defend what happened from a segregationist point of view. Instead through neglect and deliberate effort, they tried to suppress and distort news about the entire sequence of events.
Although Mr. Hurst, now in his sixties, was the sixteen-year old leader of the young people involved in the famous sit in, he makes his extraordinarily convincing case not as an angry propagandist, but as a thoughtful historian. He felt the need to write this book from the "inside" perspective because, as he successfully argues, the best local coverage at the time came from black newspapers that were not read outside that community. The local white papers covered these events minimally, in a distorted fashion, or not at all. In addition the national press--and many of the books written on the subject since those days--simply got the facts wrong. What Hurst provides in a way that has not been revealed before is the full social and cultural context in which these events unfolded.
The Jacksonville of 1960 was a profoundly segregated one, and Hurst paints a powerful and fascinating sketch of the lives of black people in that segregated reality. Denied access to many white institutions, black people had their own theaters, their own barbershops, beauty shops, haberdasheries, shoe stores, and newspapers. As the picture of that reality emerges, Hurst makes a powerful case (based on facts, not rhetorical assertions) that the preservation of segregation was based on deep rooted lies. Schools were much more poorly funded than white schools, undermining the claim that blacks schools were separate but equal. Ironically, many of the black schools were names after Confederate generals whose names were then impressed on books, documents, and the cement of the institutions themselves. In one case, a school was actually named after the Confederate General who founded the KKK! White church audiences in Jacksonville were often treated to sermons in which biblical passages were cited to justify the morality of segregationist policies. Hurst also cited many instances in which opportunities were curtailed for talented young people, including some remarkable athletes whose rise was impeded because of their color.
For young Hurst, the first step toward reclaiming his history was through a wonderful set of adult role models in the community, including series of remarkable teachers in his high school who taught students to value themselves and take pride in their community. He mentions many of them fondly in the book--in particular, his history teacher, Rutledge Henry Pearson, who laid the prescribed text aside and taught students the history of black people, locally and nationally. In the process Pearson helped students develop a sense of esteem and self-value that lead to an understanding of the oppressive nature of the segregated system under which they lived. EDUCATION was the tool of self awareness, and teachers like Pearson helped set students on the path to recognizing their condition. Other adult leaders in the local NAACP helped members of the Jacksonville youth Council of the NAACP decide that something needed to be done to change that condition. That decision, arrived at by the students themselves, led to the peaceful sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch counter, and triggered a terrifying confrontation with the white community.
Hurst's account of what unfolded is full of chilling and fascinating moments. We hear how weapons were gathered for the attack as police looked the other way. We hear accounts of how one local paper tried to persuade a wire service not to report the unfolding story for national coverage. (The wire service refused). We are made cognizant of the astounding courage of the black students who were willing to be physically beaten to stand up for their rights. We witness the bravery of a remarkable young white man, Richard Parker, who joined the sit-in, and had to be rescued from a white mob by young members of a black gang called the "boomerangs."
Over time, American and world opinion has recognized the heroism of the brave teenagers who challenged segregation and were beaten for it. The sit-ins have even been honored by a commemorative stamp. As Mr. Hurst explains, the demonstrations were about "human dignity and respect. Lunch counters were just visible and convenient venues to attack racial discrimination."
Whether you are black or white it is hard to read this book without experiencing grief, horror and dismay over these events which happened only a few short decades ago. WingSpan Press deserves kudos for printing it--but this book should have been published by a major press. (Any university press in Florida, for example would have been enhanced and honored by printing it.) It is my hope that in the future, historians will look to this excellent little book to get the inside story of what really happened at a sit-in at a white lunchroom in Jacksonville in 1960. What lead to it--and what followed. There is history to be ashamed of here--but also heroes to be proud of. This is a book that every American who cares about truth and history should read and appreciate.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
by Nick Reding
DVD ~ Keith A. Beauchamp
by Jose Saramago
