Lonely Crusade Book

I always find Chester Himes' writing entirely humbling, and this will rub your heart raw with the horrors of race in America the way only Himes could do. It is like a blunt hammer, and the deeper you read, the deeper your understanding that such blunt force is required.

"'Nigger, white man, gentile, Jew...'
Mexicans, Europeans, Orientals, South Americans - and Filipinos, he added to the quartet. Southerners, Northerners, Easterners, Westerners - and Indians - this was manpower.
With the curious blend of native and migrant, racial and religious, current and traditional hatreds - this was culture.
Living in overcrowded houses and dilapidated shacks, deserted stores and trailer camps, four beds in the bedroom and two beds in the hallway - this was housing.
Sugar shortages and black-market meat, double prices for half values - this was food.
Overcrowded hospitals and brutal police, idle streetcars and hustling criminals, and bewildered administration and prejudiced lawmakers - this was welfare."

Some things never change, like the kind of racism still prevalent on the left, and the beauty of the rare few who can step outside of it...but this is a fascinating glimpse of L.A. in the forties, the strength of the ideals and the horrifying party weaknesses of communism, the struggle to unionize during a time of plenty...