Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-2000

Rating:
Summary: Neither human progress nor Fairclough take a straight path
Review: Societal evolution seldom travels a straight path. As Professor Adam Fairclough succinctly titles one chapter of Better Day Coming: Blacks and Equality 1890-1910, human progress tends to be "two steps forward, one step backward". Several decades after the book opens with the collapse of Reconstruction, American blacks are in a worse condition than they were immediately after the Civil War. The title seems almost ironic as segregation grows stronger and black life becomes harsher between the world wars.

However, this book doesn't claim to be a sociological study but a historical account of 110 years. In that sense it falls short.

Better Day Coming's greatest weakness is its attempt to cover the period of 1890-2000. The last chapter opens immediately after the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., but apparently the author thinks little of import followed the civil rights leader's murder. The years between 1968 and 2000 are covered in a sketchy 14 pages that fail to mention prominent figures such as the Rev. Al Sharpton, and Fairclough dances around current issues relevant to the black community. Rodney King gets more mention than Jesse Jackson. The author is an educator and the last chapter resembles a textbook that acknowledges the latter material is insignificant and probably won't be covered on the final exam. Better Days Coming would have been much stronger if it focused only on the period between Reconstruction and the death of Dr. King.

Nonetheless, Professor Fairclough is a crisp writer. Although the problem noted above (along with one superfluous chapter that inexplicably rehashes previous material) hurts this book, it has strengths.

Better Day Coming predictably chronicles the lives of such prominent luminaries as Ida Wells, Booker T. Washington, W.E.B DuBois, Marcus Garvey, Dr. King, and Malcolm X. Yet it pays homage to several lesser know figures: Stanley Levinson, a brilliant and realistic white businessman; Fannie Lou Hamer, who led the charge for civil rights in Mississippi; and A. Philip Randolph, the socialist leader who proved a great inspiration to so many in the civil rights movement.

Fairclough also excels in his exploration of areas not normally covered in similar introductory works such as the vital role the United States Communist Party played in the Thirties. The author brings a fresh viewpoint to Garvey's black nationalism and Booker T. Washington's accomodationism, both of which have been widely discredited in recent years. Fairclough concludes these men and their movements were largely positive forces in black history. The book also expands on familiar areas, such as the racism of J. Edgar Hoover, who started his campaign against civil rights as a Bureau of Investigation agent assigned to investigate Garvey in 1919---more than 40 years before he began his dogged pursuit of Dr. King.

Better Day Coming is an excellent book for a reader who doesn't know much about the subject matter, and it provides details and fresh perspectives to those readers who study or were involved with the civil rights campaign. Despite its flaws, this is a solid account of one of the most important movements in American history.