Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow

I hesitated for a long time before reading this book and it sat on my nightstand for a few days. If you've read many of this blog's posts, you will notice that I read a lot of fiction books. Some, like Courage by Barbara Binns and Front Desk by Kelly Yang deal with weighty issues but others are pretty light. I know that in order to encourage kids to read, oftentimes you must lead with light books that catch their interest.

Dark Sky Rising: Reconstruction and the Dawn of Jim Crow by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Tonya Bolden is not by any stretch of the imagination, a light book. It deals with heavy, weighty issues that many, even people like myself who are of African descent, sometimes struggle to read. The weight of history, of the struggles of the ancestors and of the cruel and inhumane treatment suffered during slavery is sometimes too hard to process.

But, in the year 2020 when so many things concerning civil rights are in the public consciousness, I decided to read this book not least because I wanted to delve into some of the things that shaped the nation. Things that occur today are as a result of centuries of oppression, state policies and outright bigotry.

Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr and his co-author create a very readable account of a little studied period in American history between 1865 and 1877 called Reconstruction.  It is important to remember that not everyone was happy to see former slaves now given rights such as the right to vote through amendments to the Constitution.

I finished this book and felt a sense of pride for the enduring spirit of those who resisted and fought for the rights to live and prosper and so that their children could have a better future.  This book is, in my humble opinion, a must read for teens and adults.  We must learn from history or be doomed to repeat it.