Gentle Readers,
After lecturing you about history yesterday, I have an excellent book to recommend from which I learned a great deal. It's The Black History of the White House by Clarence Lusane. It's one of the books I bought at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco and it was published by City Lights.
I knew that some of our earliest presidents owned slaves. I did not know how many of them owned slaves. I did not know that some of those presidents took slaves to The White House with them.
Now I know because Dr. Lusane told me.
Lusane traces the history of black people in The White House from slave labor used to build the place to the Obama family moving in. I was particularly interested in stories of slaves who escaped from The White House and information about black leaders who ran for president before Barak Obama. I had nearly forgotten Shirley Chisholm.
One strange thing about this book is that it was poorly edited/proofread. I don't have any disagreements with the facts Lusane presents, but the book has an unusually large number of what we used to call typos. After one sentence, I even found the word "Cite" that someone obviously put in as a reminder that a citation needed to be added. It wasn't.
But I really liked the book.
Infinities of love,
Lola
TOMORROW IS THE BIG DAY -- MY DEBUT GUEST POSTING AT THE ADVENTURES OF CINDERITA. BE THERE OR BE SQUARE. LOVE ME, LOVE ME, SAY THAT YOU LOVE ME, BUT SAY IT OVER AT CINDERITA'S TOMORROW.
My motto as an editor: Authors are the authority on their work. I'm a full-service editor. For a reasonable fee, I'm your writing coach from the first suggested revision to the correction of the final typo.
Even Lincoln had his slave in the WH. He even helped him with the Gettysburg Address. Blacks have made enormous contributions to the building and developing of this nation, with plenty to be proud of. But they prefer to dwell on slavery and how bad someone they never knew had it. Most, today, do not even remember or ever saw the white and colored only drinking fountains. Being forced to ride in the back of the bus and have food handed to them out the back door of a restaurant. I was raised among this and remember it well. It was the people of he 60's that gave them the freedoms they have today.
ReplyDeleteThis is one I want to read because of my love of the history of the presidency and of the White House.
ReplyDeleteTypos like that are to be expected in City Lights titles. I've had my experiences with that.
Coffeypot, You should tell these stories on your blog and I hope you tell your grandkids and their friends.
ReplyDeleteRory, Hope you enjoy. I love presidential history too, but I have certain administrations that interest me more than others. If I lived in Austin I would spend every day at the LBJ Museum. I LOVE presidential museums. The most boring one I've seen is Hoover's.
Love,
Lola
My one goal in life is to visit all the presidential libraries in the nation. I loved Nixon's library more than Reagan's, because Reagan's is all about image, while Nixon's got into his policies, though I haven't seen the new Watergate exhibit that recently opened, and am wondering if another day trip to Yorba Linda is possible before we move.
ReplyDeleteMy administrations of choice are FDR forward. My favorite administration is Nixon's, the constant intrigue within it.
I am always facinated by what goes on in the white house.
ReplyDeleteMy Great grandfather was Secret service for 4 presidents. He was involved in alot of "goings on".
I love reading his memoirs. :)
My Great grandfather was Secret service for 4 presidents. He was involved in alot of "goings on".
ReplyDeleteI love reading his memoirs. :)
Are those published memoirs, Julianna? Those sound like my kind of treasure.
Julianna, Tell more!
ReplyDeleteRory, I want to visit all the libraries too. My favorite is Johnson's but Kennedy's is in a beautiful spot. FDR's and Truman's are pretty interesting. I haven't seen Reagan, Nixon, Bush, etc. and would love to. Don't know if I could stand to go to Clinton's. Hate him like the plague. Nixon is fascinating. What a contradiction. So great in foreign policy but ruined himself with his paranoia.
Love,
Lola
Oh, and I'd like to visit the Carter Center. He was an awful president but he's such a great ex-president.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Lola
It's sounds like a very informative book :) It's sad when people don't take the time to weed out typos. But you know it's an amazing book when you can love it despite the errors.
ReplyDelete