February 2017 Book Group

February’s selection is White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide by Carol Anderson.

In White Rage, Carol Anderson cites racial hostility as the reason behind years of white Americans’ ongoing efforts to keep African Americans from making real progress in being treated equally in our society. For many whites, the election of an African American president unleashed unprecedented resentment and support of today’s attempts to keep blacks down through disproportionately criminalizing them and suppressing their voting rights. This followed years of subjecting African Americans to the horror of slavery and the extraordinary attempts to stop Freedmen from fleeing repression during the Great Migration. Then came the Jim Crow laws in the South and discriminatory laws and customs around the country that kept African Americans in check for many generations. Washington Post book reviewer, Pamela Newkirk, says, “While short on solutions, White Rage is a sobering primer on the myriad ways African American resilience and triumph over enslavement. Jim Crow and intolerance have been relentlessly defied by the very institutions entrusted to uphold our democracy.”

The SDARJ Book Group usually meets on the fourth Tuesday of the month; 6:00 – 7:45 p.m. at the Lewes Library, 111 Adams Avenue, Lewes, Delaware 19958. Book club participants choose titles to read and discuss at future meetings.