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Scalawag tells the surprising story of a white working-class boy who became an unlikely civil rights activist. Born in 1935 in Richmond, where he was sent to segregated churches and schools, Ed Peeples was taught the ethos and lore of white supremacy by every adult in his young life. That message came with an equally cruel one?that, as the child of a wage-earning single mother, he was destined for failure. But by age nineteen Peeples became what the whites in his world called a "traitor to the race." Pushed by a lone teacher to think critically, Peeples found his way to the black freedom struggle and began a long life of activism. He challenged racism in his U.S. Navy unit and engaged in sit-ins and community organizing. Later, as a university professor, he agitated for good jobs, health care, and decent housing for all, pushed for the creation of African American studies courses at his university, and worked toward equal treatment for women, prison reform, and more. Peeples did most of his human rights work in his native Virginia, and his story reveals how institutional racism pervaded the Upper South as much as the Deep South. Covering fifty years' participation in the long civil rights movement, Peeples?s gripping story brings to life an unsung activist culture to which countless forgotten individuals contributed, over time expanding their commitment from civil rights to other causes. This engrossing, witty tale of escape from what once seemed certain fate invites readers to reflect on how moral courage can transform a life.… (más)
First, in the interest of full disclosure: I know the author. Scalawag is a very personal account of a white Southerner worked against injustice and for equality from the very early days of the civil rights movement. There have been other accounts by white activists, including one of my personal favorites, Freedom Song by Mary King, but this story by Ed Peeples is different. It is different because Ed was from a poor white, largely dysfunctional, family. He struggled to get an education, keep a job, and raise a family all while engaging in activism. Ed did not go south to Mississippi or Georgia. His activism took place in large part where he was going to school, in the Navy, and in Virginia where he worked and lived. I knew some of the story he recounts about growing up mainly through my mother who worked with Ed and the others who figure in his story but to be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention. Like most people who know him, I just liked him. The fact that his childhood and adolescence did not make him bitter but made him more empathetic is a wonderful thing.
Like many autobiographical works, Scalawag sometimes seems disjointed and even though I knew first hand of many of the events from the 1970s and 1980s, I sometimes had to go back a few paragraphs to make certain that I had the date right. But this does not detract from the warmth and humor that comes through consistently. I could often “hear” Ed telling the story to me or to a group of his friends. He is a great storyteller.
I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think there are any other books about the efforts to desegregate Virginia written by a white man. Certainly others have written about Prince Edward County, but I’m not sure that anyone else has written about segregation in the Richmond City Welfare Department or at what is now the famous basketball school, Virginia Commonwealth University, (Ed, by the way, played basketball for VCU’s predecessor, Richmond Professional Institute) or at the Medical College of Virginia hospitals and school. Ed was involved in desegregating all of those institutions.
If you are interested in Virginia or Southern history, this is an important book for you to read. ( )
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Therefore all things whatsoever he would that men should do to you, do he even so to them; for this is the Law and the prophets.
The King James Bible, as given to Edward H. Peeples at age twelve by the Woodland Heights Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia, 1947
Scalawag - n. Origin, U.S. A disreputable person, a rascal, a good-for-nothing, a shirker, a scamp. 2a. A Southern White who supported Reconstruction. - The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
Dedicatoria
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
To the victims of injustice everywhere and those who dare to join in their struggle
Primeras palabras
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
My mother picked a helluva day for me to arrive on this earth: April 20, 1935, the same birthday as Adolf Hitler, who at that very moment was engaged in the violent creation of his Aryan empire.
Citas
Últimas palabras
Aviso de desambiguación
Editores de la editorial
Blurbistas
Información procedente del conocimiento común inglés.Edita para encontrar en tu idioma.
Scalawag tells the surprising story of a white working-class boy who became an unlikely civil rights activist. Born in 1935 in Richmond, where he was sent to segregated churches and schools, Ed Peeples was taught the ethos and lore of white supremacy by every adult in his young life. That message came with an equally cruel one?that, as the child of a wage-earning single mother, he was destined for failure. But by age nineteen Peeples became what the whites in his world called a "traitor to the race." Pushed by a lone teacher to think critically, Peeples found his way to the black freedom struggle and began a long life of activism. He challenged racism in his U.S. Navy unit and engaged in sit-ins and community organizing. Later, as a university professor, he agitated for good jobs, health care, and decent housing for all, pushed for the creation of African American studies courses at his university, and worked toward equal treatment for women, prison reform, and more. Peeples did most of his human rights work in his native Virginia, and his story reveals how institutional racism pervaded the Upper South as much as the Deep South. Covering fifty years' participation in the long civil rights movement, Peeples?s gripping story brings to life an unsung activist culture to which countless forgotten individuals contributed, over time expanding their commitment from civil rights to other causes. This engrossing, witty tale of escape from what once seemed certain fate invites readers to reflect on how moral courage can transform a life.
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Scalawag is a very personal account of a white Southerner worked against injustice and for equality from the very early days of the civil rights movement. There have been other accounts by white activists, including one of my personal favorites, Freedom Song by Mary King, but this story by Ed Peeples is different. It is different because Ed was from a poor white, largely dysfunctional, family. He struggled to get an education, keep a job, and raise a family all while engaging in activism. Ed did not go south to Mississippi or Georgia. His activism took place in large part where he was going to school, in the Navy, and in Virginia where he worked and lived. I knew some of the story he recounts about growing up mainly through my mother who worked with Ed and the others who figure in his story but to be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention. Like most people who know him, I just liked him. The fact that his childhood and adolescence did not make him bitter but made him more empathetic is a wonderful thing.
Like many autobiographical works, Scalawag sometimes seems disjointed and even though I knew first hand of many of the events from the 1970s and 1980s, I sometimes had to go back a few paragraphs to make certain that I had the date right. But this does not detract from the warmth and humor that comes through consistently. I could often “hear” Ed telling the story to me or to a group of his friends. He is a great storyteller.
I’m not 100% sure, but I don’t think there are any other books about the efforts to desegregate Virginia written by a white man. Certainly others have written about Prince Edward County, but I’m not sure that anyone else has written about segregation in the Richmond City Welfare Department or at what is now the famous basketball school, Virginia Commonwealth University, (Ed, by the way, played basketball for VCU’s predecessor, Richmond Professional Institute) or at the Medical College of Virginia hospitals and school. Ed was involved in desegregating all of those institutions.
If you are interested in Virginia or Southern history, this is an important book for you to read. (