Mayberry – Small-Town Midwest America

I grew up in Mayberry. Not really, of course. But Yankton, South Dakota was about as close to Mayberry as you could get in the middle of last century. It may still be. None of that is to say that growing up there gave one an advantage. What life has shown me since is my…

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Powerful, Profound Novel Looks at Racism in America Today

#leonardpittsjr #grantpark #racism Malcolm Toussaint is a haunted man. He was in position to save Martin Luther King from assassination but failed to move fast enough to get the civil rights leader out of harm’s way. Only nineteen years old on that fateful balcony in Memphis in April, 1968. the tragedy lodges in his subconscious.…

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Paperbacks Reshape American Culture

Ah, the lowly paperback. It has had a powerful impact on American culture. Author Paul Rabinowitz delineates the role it has played since first appearing for sale on American newsstands, drugstores, and coffee shops in the 1930’s. Her book, American Pulp: How Paperbacks Brought Modernism to Main Street, examines the often overlooked influence that the…

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Battle for Civil Rights Erupts into Riot July 1967 in Detroit

#detroitriots  #detroit  #civilrights  #riots This is a third installment on a series that I have offered on my family’s experience living in Detroit during the mid-1960’s, a period of violent social unrest and the battle over Civil Rights. Readers are urged to read the previous post(s) before wading into this one. My wife and I…

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Holding Sweet Communion – A Debut Civil War Novel by Martha R. Brown

#civilwar #confederacy #historicalletters #armyofnorthernvirginia #gettysburg I have yet to write a review on my web site. Truth is, I don’t read very much. But Martha R. Brown and her husband Rod are friends of mine, and they knew of my interest in Civil War history. Consequently, when Martha reported finding a packet of letters that…

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