Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction

In 1944, Primus King, a black man registered to vote in Georgia, attempted to cast a ballot in the Democratic primary. He was turned away by a police officer who escorted him off the premises of the Muscogee County Courthouse. This was a time in Georgia where the Democratic Party controlled all of the politics in Georgia and in the South. Primus King’s challenge to the white primary was planned by a group of black civil rights

Greene, Fay Melissa, “ Praying for Sheetrock”,New York , New York, Random House Publishing Group, 1992

Most of the officeholders were white men who had been on the political margins before the Civil War. In the Deep South, African Americans whom had just been freed from slavery were allowed to serve as state representatives and senators, county commissioners, treasurers, and occasionally sheriffs. They regarded the civil enfranchisement and the political empowerment of African Americans as the grossest of illegitimacies and the direst of threats. Initially through vigilante bands such as the Ku Klux Klan, but eventually through organizations with close ties to the Democratic

Up until 1962 Fannie was like many black people ignorant of voting knowledge. She did not even know how to register. However, one changed her life. She attended a mass meeting at the Williams Chapel Church in Ruleville, Mississippi. This meeting was lead by workers from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). They

In his, letter, Dr. King seemed rather dissatisfied with the local government, particularly the one of Birmingham, Alabama. He openly expressed his desire “to see Mr. Conner [a local official] defeated [in an election]” (79), and even though after the election, Connor was replaced by a man named Boutwell, Dr. King said “While Mr. Boutwell is much more articulate and gentle than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to the task of maintaining the status quo” (79), describing his continued dissatisfaction with the local government. Though Dr. King disliked the

In “Populist Dreams and Negro Rights: East Texas as a Case Study,” Lawrence Goodwyn keys in on the triumphs of the People 's Party in Grimes County, Texas. I discovered Populism in Grimes County is the narrative of an interracial alliance that had its beginning in Reconstruction and persevered for more than an era. I resolved why the long post-Reconstruction period emerges as the social request that has been composed progressively along racial lines; the time period encroached as a brief gleaming light in parts of the South. I learned how some white Southerners have generally been a spread for the district 's skepticism and other issues. Goodwyn establishes a viewpoint about the possible results for a greater number of individuals voting in a free society. I understand that the variables of pressure and coercion caused an end to influence at the polling stations; there was corruption occurring with vote counts. The Grimes County story significantly describes this disappointment; however in the understanding, it gives into the hidden legislative issues of black disfranchisement and the accomplishment of a solid single-party political environment in the American South it is not one of a kind.

Political advocacy organizations have historically played a big part in securing political rights for minority groups in Western Liberal Democracies. Whether we look to the now infamous Boston Tea Party to the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, we observe the importance of political organizations in their quest to ensure equitable rights for the people whom they represent. In context of the early twentieth century, the most prominent group to represent African-American’s in the United States was that of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP, as it is more commonly called, was founded on February 12, 1909 by a mixed group of individuals including but not limited to Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. DuBois and Archibald Grimké with the goal of creating a civil rights organization that would help assist in organizing for civil rights for blacks. One of its most prominent members, Charles Hamilton Houston, who became a part of the organization around the mid-twentieth century, changed the trajectory of the organization for years to come. Hence this essay

They manipulated relief benefits so that poor whites were often denied payments and pushed out of the county so that they could keep in blacks who would work for starvation rates; they manipulated higher property taxes for blacks and lower taxes for themselves which resulted in the black community virtually paying for the entire school system; the decision to not sell life insurance to blacks was made by these men; and finally they held in their hands the decision of what was to be done to the men responsible for Armstrong Todd’s death (Campbell: 109). It is evident that the men belonging to the legacy of the Honorable Men of Hopewell were undoubtedly the most powerful body of all decisions made making them the power elite.

In fact, throughout Reconstruction, African Americans comprised about 90% of GOP membership and 44 African hard work of a number of dedicated African American men and women that the earliest foundations of the Republican Party of Texas were laid. The first ever state Republican convention that met in Houston on July 4, 1867 was predominantly African American in composition, with about 150 African American Texans attending, and 20 Anglos. The second State GOP Chairman, Norris Wright Cuney, an African-American from Galveston who led the Republican Party from 1883 to 1897, is said by State historians to have held “the most important political position given to a black man of the South in the nineteenth century.”

the speech “With Mrs. Fannie Lou Hamer,” Malcolm affirms that because the black man is denied the right to vote in the south of the forty-six committees that had control the foreign and domestic direction of the country in 1964 twenty-three were in the hands of Southern racists. Another account concerning voting in the south, Malcolm

Throughout this movement, there was a balance between white and black power in Lowndes County. Plus, this movement explained how voting rights was indeed important for African Americans, as well as emphasizing that black people needed to participate in political parties in order to gain their freedom. As Jeffries mentioned, “Lowndes movement, which not only involved voting rights agitation, but also for organizing quality education, economic opportunity, and control of the government,” it shows the push for black people gaining power through politics. By doing that, people of color would be able to change the way they are perceived in society. Participating in politics, it illustrates that black people have an understanding of their black power. It also shows that that their rights will be respected as they will gain control over those who wanted to oppress

Even though Sherriff Tom was a white man who had grown up in Darien, he did not share the same values that the rest of the white citizens of the county did. In the end of chapter one, Greene wrote that most of the citizens in Darien did not miss slavery, but instead “they honor the time before slavery before Africans touched foot on the land.”(Melissa Greene Pg. 19) rather than focusing on the past and vigorously trying to maintain the separation between the races, Tom does not really care, or at least as much as the others do, about a person’s skin color. The only thing that Tom is interested in is money as stated on page fourteen. The Sheriff does not share the same values because he has discovered that by being more inclusive he can maintain his political power and expand his legal and illegal endeavors. In contrast, Ben Alston does share the same values and objectives that the rest of the black community in McIntosh County have. ”They don’t even understand what he was trying to do for them, how he poured his

Nathan Phillips Mrs. Banister AP Lang- 3rd 16 November 2014 Rhetorical Analysis of “Nancy’s Bedroom” Novelist, Truman Capote, in his book, In Cold Blood, presents a picturesque account of a young, innocent girl’s bedroom. Capote uses this text to portray Nancy’s innocence, and create sympathy by thoroughly describing each section of her room. He adopts a sympathetic tone by using his imagery, his ethos, and varied syntax in order to emphasize to the readers that the murder of this innocent girl was a catastrophe.

Praying for Sheetrock, by esteemed author Melissa Fay Greene, is a story about the Confederate States' lost cause in the civil war and the traditions and moralities that are still imbued in the deep south even to this day. It is also a story about how Federal laws still haven't caught up with the backwaters cities of the South. Praying for Sheetrock is a magnificent story which brings to life the atrocities and inhumane treatments faced by the colored man within the last fifty years. Beginning during the 1970's, several years after the famous Civil Rights movement and passing of the unprecedented Civil Rights act, McIntosh County has remain magically untouched by the changes that have swept through the nation in the past decade The county,

Through his numerous short stories, fiction novels, and even nonfiction novels, Truman Capote has notably been considered one of America’s most prominent literary writers of the twentieth century. The numerous conflicts in which Capote dealt with in the earlier parts of his life led him to procure solace in writing (McMillan). Emerging as a prolific author who was commonly known for his excellent usage of prose, Capote came to publish the notorious nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, in 1966. During Capote’s era, Southern Gothicism, a literary genre associated with dark and grotesque themes, increasingly prevailed (Bjerre). Capote’s novel became an atypical work in the genre, though, as he transformed a work of literary nonfiction into what seemed as though a “factional” piece-- a true novel in which incorporated fictional elements of Southern Gothicism (“Slouching Toward Popularity). Within the novel, Capote intricately details the Clutter family murder executed by Richard Hickock and Perry Smith. By doing so, he was able to successfully incorporate elements of Southern gothicism within the novel. Through the analysis of the damaged characters within the novel, the criminality involved in the Clutter murder, and the violence of the murder itself, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood not only fit the Southern Gothic genre, but ultimately came to revolutionize the nonfiction novel, thus proving its deserved standing in the literary canon.