Stony the Road
 | |
| Author | Henry Louis Gates Jr. |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Penguin Press |
Publication date | 2019 |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 9780525559559 |
| OCLC | 1149245395 |
Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow is a 2019 non-fiction book written by Henry Louis Gates Jr. covering African-American history during the Reconstruction era, Redemption era, and the New Negro Movement.
Background
[edit]Stony the Road is a spiritual successor to Eric Foner's Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution - 1863-1877.[1] Gates derived his book's title from a James Weldon Johnson lyric in "Lift Every Voice and Sing": "Stony the road we trod / Bitter the chast'ning rod".[2][3]
Gates was inspired to reexamine the Reconstruction era in part as a response to recent white supremacist terror incidents in the U.S., such as the 2015 Charleston church shooting. He also wanted to study precedents in growing African-American political power.[4]
Contents
[edit]Stony the Road offers a historical overview of the social advances of Reconstruction, the subsequent rollback of those policies with the resurgence of white supremacy during the Redemption period, and the attempts by African-Americans to change the cultural image of black people in the U.S. during the Harlem Renaissance, otherwise known as the New Negro Movement. Between chapters, there are illustrations and photographs to contrast the historically pervasive anti-black racist iconography with more affirming media from the New Negro Movement.[2]
Reception
[edit]Stony the Road received positive reviews in The New York Times,[2] NPR,[5] The Nation,[4] The Washington Post,[1] and The New Yorker.[6]
Publicity for the book was enhanced when Gates hosted a four-hour PBS documentary series in April 2019 entitled "Reconstruction: America after the Civil War", with material drawn from his research on Stony the Road.[7][8]
References
[edit]- ^ a b Raines, Howell (2019-04-09). "Review | From black triumph to racial hysteria to the 'new Negro'". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
- ^ a b c Painter, Nell Irvin (April 18, 2019). "In 'Stony the Road,' Henry Louis Gates Jr. Captures the History and Images of the Fraught Years After the Civil War". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
- ^ Johnson, James Weldon (1900). "Lift Every Voice and Sing". Poets.org. Academy of American Poets.
- ^ a b Greene II, Robert (August 13, 2019). "Vigilant Struggle: The Long Arc of Reconstruction". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
- ^ Schaub, Michael (2019-04-03). "In 'Stony The Road,' Henry Louis Gates Jr. Looks At The Period After Reconstruction". NPR. Retrieved May 18, 2022.
- ^ Gopnik, Adam (April 8, 2019). "How the South Won the Civil War". The New Yorker.
- ^ PBS Publicity (July 30, 2018). "PBS Announces RECONSTRUCTION: AMERICA AFTER THE CIVIL WAR, a New Documentary from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., to air Spring 2019 on PBS". PBS.
- ^ "Reconstruction: America after the Civil War". PBS. April 2019.