Black and green Book

This book would have received 5-stars had it not entirely ignored, nay, insulted, the black participation in the Communist movement of the 1930s-1950s. Whilst Paul Robeson is treated respectfully (as he should be), whilst black activists and theorists like Harry Haywood are derided with phrases such as "Stalinist dogma."

The book even then would've received 4-stars if not for its pathetic treatment of the Black Power movement. Genuine and fair criticisms of its practice and tactics aside, the ideological criticism of the Black Power movement as some kind of "reverse racism" and deluded fantasy of downtrodden and lower-class black masses is absurd and ignores the harsh realities poor blacks were facing, and still face.

However, as an entry-level survey of the Civil Rights Movement from the era of Redemption to the Clinton Presidency, it is, although flawed, a good work. The only other problem is that, to borrow and repurpose the words of a white supremacist President, "...it is all so terribly true."