The Angry Masses - No Post Today

These people are really angry! And they have just cause to be so. The problem seems to have arisen at the offices of Rooftop Reviews, where there was shock and dismay at the discovery that I had nothing to post today.

With a daily circulation of almost 200 in 59 different countries, word spread quickly and people were upset everywhere! This crowd, in Manchester England, took it out on the local constabulary, who showed great restraint in the face of  overwhelming emotional odds.

But, fear not, by tomorrow there will be a resumption of the usual pithy nonsense you have come to expect of Rooftop Reviews. And thanks to these fans in Manchester, I ended up with something to post today anyway.

To be honest, it really is a very interesting video. I could expound on the reasons why, but then that would be a real post, wouldn't it?

"Snow-Storm in August" by Jefferson Morley (2012)

The City of Washington D.C. springs to life in the hands of author Jefferson Morley’s book “Snow-Storm in August”. Billed as a biography of one man, Beverly Snow; a free man of color living in D.C. at the time; the book is so much more. Mr. Snow’s story is merely the vehicle by which the author has painted a very accurate; and fascinating; portrait of Washington only 3 decades after it was founded. There were times, while reading this book, in which Mr. Snow became the furthest thing from my mind.

The book delves into the history behind the decision to locate the Capital City where it stands today; and not in another Northern state, such as New York, or Philadelphia, both of which had already been home to our fledgling national government. The District of Columbia was chosen because it was acceptable to the Southern states, being surrounded; as it was; on two sides, by the slave holding states of Maryland to the North, and Virginia to the South. The district was filled with African- Americans, some free, and some enslaved.

Mr. Snow was of mixed race; referred to at the time as “mulatto”; and owned an oyster house on the James River in the town of Lynchburg, Virginia. He took for a wife a free woman of color named Julia, and the couple moved in with Beverly’s owner Susannah Norvell. Susannah’s father had left her Beverly in his will. Sussanah was a forward thinking woman who disliked the institution of slavery and manumitted Beverly, enabling him and Julia to open their very prosperous oyster house. Each month some of the profits would be kept by Beverly and his wife, while the rest went to Sussanah.

Before long, the lure of the Capital City, and the profits to be made there, called to Beverly. He settled all accounts with his mistress and her husband, and then he and Julia moved; as free persons of color; to the District. There, Beverly went to work for Jesse Brown, who owned a fine restaurant.

The author also introduces us to a Mrs. Anna Thornton, a Washington widow who owned some property and several slaves. She allowed her driver, George Plant to live in Georgetown with his wife of color, who was also a free woman. This was not an unusual arrangement at the time in Washington. So long as the servant showed up at the master’s home at the appointed time, there was no trouble.

On the night of August 4^th, 1835, one of Mrs. Thornton’s servants; a young man named Arthur Bowen; who was also the son of her most trusted maid, tried to kill her. His own mother awoke just in time to stop her son from killing her mistress. The boy fled and a city erupted in violence. This was the first race riot in Washington, D.C., a city which was divided in its customs and viewpoints concerning slavery. Anna Thornton’s assailant was sentenced to death by hanging, and only her impassioned plea for clemency; made by Mrs. Thornton out of her fondness for the boy’s mother; caused President Jackson to pardon the young man.

With a deft style that will keep you turning the pages, the author rolls back the curtain on a time in our nation’s history when slaves built our national monuments, while great statesmen spoke of “freedom for all.” This is one of the most neglected chapters of our history; how a nation; truly divided, and on the brink of civil war; managed to hold together for so long before the issue of slavery finally ripped it in half.

The book also explores the career of Francis Scott Key after he wrote the “Star Spangled Banner”. He was the District Attorney in Washington at the time of these events. He waged a campaign against vice, mainly the many brothels which proliferated in Washington at the time. He also wrote erotic poetry and was tone deaf, and never got to hear his immortal poem sung to music.

As a matter of fact, the author has packed so much information into this work, that Beverly Snow’s story gets a bit lost in it. This book is so wide in its scope that it will take a second reading to truly enjoy it fully. That’s a compliment.

"The Savage City" by T.J. English

When I was about 11 years old, my family took a trip down South from New York City. We went as far as North Carolina, which is where I live today. At the time, while passing through Lumberton, I had my first upclose look at the last vestiges of the Jim Crow era, which had just come to an end with the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1964. But that didn't stop the sweet, and pretty, young cashier at the Howard Johnson's from calling the little black kid, who worked there, "nigger." I was so glad to have come from the North, where this type of thing did not occur. Or, at least that's what I thought.

I grew up in New York City, in the borough of Brooklyn, at a time when the whole country was undergoing a radical shift in race relations. The TV was filled with images of police dogs being loosed upon non violent protesters; women and children included. I was proud of the fact that we were so different in our handling of race issues in the North.

Of course, as I got older, I realized that the only difference between the North and the South was the way in which we were racist. In the South, it was overt. In the North, it was covert, and swept under the rug, where no one could see it.

"The Savage City" is a good, hard look at what was under that rug. And it's not a very pretty sight. Institutionalized racism was as rampant in the North as it was in the South. The author, T.J. English, has given us an insightful, and revealing look at the way things were done in New York City during the 1950's through the 1970's. And along the way he provides the historical background necessary to understand both the differences, and the similarities, of both systems.

Using 3 individuals as examples, the author expertly weaves their lives, and their troubles, into a tapestry of officially sanctioned racism, as insipid and evil as that of the South. Beginning with the social history of the great movement of blacks, and Puerto Ricans, to the North, looking for jobs during the Second World War, he traces the seeds of a different kind of racism, one that would eventually boil over in the hot summer months of the mid-sixties, leaving our cities burnt and scarred for decades to come.

The book kicks off with the attempted murder of Martin Luther King in Blumstein's, a Harlem Department store where he had gone to promote his book "Stride Toward Freedom." A black woman plunged a letter opener into his chest, just missing his aorta. She had been stalking him for several years, believing that his work in the Civil Rights Movement was Communist influenced. This incident exposed the divisions between the various African-American factions of the time in regards to the expolsive issue of Civil Rights. Some thought we were moving too fast, while others believed that we were not moving fast enough.

Three individuals are explored in this book. First, and foremost, is the real victim, George Whitmore, Jr., a young black man from Wildwood, New Jersey. He decides to leave the junkyard where he grew up for the opportunities that he believes await him in Brooklyn. His decision will change his life forever when he is falsely accused, and then imprisoned for the notorious "Career Girls" murder in Manhattan, a crime which took place while he was still living in New Jersey! Tried and convicted, he wins an appeal, only to be retried 2 more times for the same crime. Remember, this is happening in New York, not Alabama! He is also charged with 2 other crimes which he did not commit, just to be sure they "get him." Along the way, evidence is lost, destroyed and tampered with, all in the name of convicting Mr. Whitmore rather than admit to a mistake on the part of the police.

The second story here is that of Police Detective Bill Phillips, one of the most notorious of the "crooked" cops who so brazenly extorted, and shook down, everyone in his path. His criminal activities eventually landed him back in uniform, pounding a beat, where his corrupt methods of law and order served as one of the openings for the Knapp Commision hearings in the late 1960's. His story is one of avarice, greed and violence. The racism he adhered to was considered to be just a routine part of his job.

Dhoruba Bin Wahad was a kid from the Bronx, who was serving time for robbery when he became a Muslim. Released in time for the long hot summers of 1967 and 1968, he is trying to turn his life around during the social revolution sweeping the land in the form of Black Power, and the Black Panthers. In short order, the streets of New York would be awash in the blood of slain officers. Some were shot while on patrol, ambushed with phony calls for police, while others were injured in the rioting which scorched whole neighborhoods, leaving the urban landscape forever changed.

This is an unflinching look at the racial disparities, and attitudes, which combined to destroy our cities, and portions of African-American culture during the post-war years in New York. For a kid from Brooklyn, who grew up in the midst of all of this, the book is an eye opener to what was really happening all around me in the city where I grew up.

Well written, historically accurate, and compelling in it's scope, this book proves the old adage, that sometimes "you can't see the forest for the trees."