Customer Reviews

Wherever There's a Fight: How Runaway Slaves, Suffragists, Immigrants, Strikers, and Poets Shaped Civil Liberties in California

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

So many different kinds of people show up in California trying to do so many different kinds of things--small wonder that from Gold Rush days on, the state has been a proving ground for civil liberties.

This well researched, well written "alternative history" book, highlights individuals--some famous and some lesser known--who worked to change the legal system. The book is divided into chapters covering issues including the rights of workers, the rights of immigrants, the right to free expression, gay rights, and the rights of people with disabilities. This is a mostly chronological history of civil liberties in California--starting with Chapter One--Staking Our Claim--the law in early California. But because chapters are organized by issue--there is some jumping between decades.

The title of this book comes from the speech that Tom Joad, a character in John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, gives as he fights for the rights of farmworkers:
"Wherever they's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever they's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there...I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad an'--I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry an' they know supper's ready. An' when our folks eat the stuff they raise an' live in the houses they build--why, I'll be there."

As a librarian, I loved that Chapter Seven, "Mightier Than the Sword" opens with the lines, "When Kern County librarian Gretchen Knief returned home for her vacation in August 1939, the familiar landscape was attracting national attention. The rich agricultural San Joaquin Valley, where Knief lived, was the setting of John Steinbeck's best-selling novel The Grapes of Wrath."

On Gretchen's desk was "an August 21 resolution from the Kern County Board of Supervisors ordering the book removed from the library shelves because it "offended our citizens by falsely implying that man of our find people are shallow, ignorant, profane and blasphemous types, living in a vicious filthy manner."

Knief fought the ban in court, but it was upheld until January 1941. Still there is her letter to the board of supervisors that says, "If the book is banned today, what book will be banned tomorrow? And what book will want a book banned the day after that?"

Wherever There's A Fight made me want to know more about Knief and other outspoken citizens who took on a wide range of civil issues. I actuall found myself reading this book with a notepad, so that I could take down their names and learn more about them later.

There is a lot of material covered here--you can use this as a reference rather than as a book to read in a few sittings. But I did read it in sittings on my Caltrain commute, lugging it all over town!

My hope is that this will be an assigned text for college and law school classes--or at least placed on a host of reserve reading lists. California history and civil rights issues come alive here, because of the emphasis on THE PEOPLE!

Highly recommended and don't miss the authors on their book tour!

Lauren Zina John M.L.S.
Librarian and book group leader
Palo Alto, California

If you want to know what really happened in California in the arena of civil rights from statehood to the present, this is the book for you. The authors have provided a wealth of information combined with human interest stories to bring the information alive in this engrossing book.

Be surprised to discover how recently our civil rights have needed legal intervention to be maintained. Be surprised to read stories of abuse of basic rights in this state we consider so free, liberal and advanced.

The authors have done excellent research and have provided a scholarly text. However, they have maintained ordinary interest and relevance by giving personal stories - sometimes heart warming, sometimes distressing, but always fascinating.

You won't be able to put it done!

This books is a must for those involved with social justice and multicultural work. The author's are clear and concise and educate the reader with a narrative tone and inform of the zeitgeist of post-World War II America. From the chastisement of Jehovah's Witnesses to the murder of Black Muslims, this text teaches all who hear about the struggle for equality and social justice.

The book came in 3 days after I ordered it and the book itself is Great, doesn't even look used and great price for it :)

One always looks for a book that can give a broad overview of civil rights, of how struggle continuesnto be meaningful... Even as a prof. Of literature I want my students tonread a real book, one that will show without preaching how complex history is. And this is the book, the perfect companion. The authors are marvelous. Keep this book by your side.

Today's political language and the issues that require our votes and attention are hard to understand if we do not know the background against which they developed. Lucky for us Californians, California traceable social history as it pertains to all its residents today only reaches back to the middle of nineteenth century. "Wherever There's A Fight" pointedly traces this history in a way that each chapter stands on its own and you can go to the subject you are interested in (or need to vote on) and get a perspective. Chances are when you read one chapter you would want to read the whole book. It is a meticulously researched, beautifully written and elegantly edited work. Anyone interested in California, social history, civil rights or history in general would find this book a treat. Highly recommended!

I love this book. It is filled with sample after sample of moments in California history where the "little beaten down guy" turns things around by fighting back, often, through the courts.
This book has been a great follow-up to my Women's History class. All semester my teacher mentioned that California has NOT always been the first state to make changes for the world to follow. We were behind the rest of the country when it came to civil and human rights. Wherever There's a Fight is proof her words are true.
I am not finished reading. I am slowly getting through this book. It can be depressing and shocking-a lot to absord in a sitting. I am sure I will use it as a reference in my future studies at school.

I thoroughly enjoyed this well-researched book that surely must be the last word on the dynamic history of civil liberties--lost and gained--in California from Statehood to the millennium. The authors present these exciting and turbulent events of California's past in a way that reaches the reader in a very personal way. I just could not have imagined all that has happened in California to affect our civil rights both positively and negatively. If only this book could be part of every California public school's "Civics" class reading--how much more enlightened our populace would be!

As a native Californian, I found this account of the battles for civil rights throughout the state's history truly absorbing. The authors have dug up the personal details of the heroes and villains that make the history come alive, and they tell it with novelists' skill. I read many of the stories here for the first time. Others are familiar tales, but told with a freshness and eye for detail that provide new and valuable insight into the state's troubled heritage -- and emphasize once again that rights are something that have to be fought for constantly, year after year, forever.