The Senator and the Sharecropper: The Freedom Struggles of James O. Eastland and Fannie Lou Hamer | 
 enlarge | Author: Chris Myers Asch
Publisher: New Press
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 31761
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 384
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 1595583327
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.80097624709045
EAN: 9781595583321
ASIN: 1595583327
Publication Date: May 13, 2008
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Product Description
The epic struggle for black equality in the twentieth century, told through the deeply intertwined life histories of the staunch segregationist and his sharecropper nemesis.
Sunflower County, Mississippi, is a land of seeming contradictions. It boasts some of the world's richest soil, yet has produced widespread poverty that lingers to this day. It stood at the epicenter of the civil rights movement, yet still suffers from racial inequality. It has been on the forefront of globalization, yet continues to stagnate economically.
The Senator and the Sharecropper explores these paradoxes, telling the story of two larger-than-life personalities who epitomized the county's extremes: the senator, James O. Eastland, a wealthy white cotton planter who was one of the most powerful segregationists in the U.S. Senate, and the sharecropper, Fannie Lou Hamer, who grew up desperately poor just a few miles from the Eastland plantation and rose to become the spiritual leader of the Mississippi freedom struggle. Their intertwined histories-set against a backdrop of Sunflower County's rise and fall as a center of cotton agriculture-show how this isolated county weathered revolutionary changes in seemingly distant realms, from the global economy to the Cold War to national politics.
Although Sunflower County would be transformed during the tumultuous decades of the mid-twentieth century, it remained at century's end resiliently separate and unequal. Asch, who spent nearly a decade here as an educator, combines a scholar's attention to fact with an insider's love of the area to tell a maddening but compelling, discouraging yet inspirational story of change and continuity in a land few Americans understand.
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The Senator and the Sharecropper June 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book tells the story of two very different people, both residents of Sunflower County, Mississippi from the early 1900s to the turbulent decades of the 1940s, 50s and 60. If you like history, you'll love the book; it is factual, well researched and full of meaningful anecdotes. If you don't like history, you'll love this book, too. It is great fun to read because Myers includes reflections about his personal experiences as a teacher in Sunflower County.
At first, the two protagonists seem to be a study in contrasts. James Eastland was a wealthy planter and segregationist U.S. Senator with an enormous influence in Washington. Fanny Lou Hamer, the daughter of a poor black sharecropper, became a leading figure in the civil rights movement. Surprisingly, Myers finds common ground. He treats both subjects with sensitivity.
It's nice to read a history from someone who unabashedly says in the first sentence of the preface: "I love Sunflower County, Mississippi." As you read this book, you'll see why and you'll gain an understanding of the problems, prospects and beauty of this corner of the world.
Read This Book! May 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book is a must read for any person interested in Mississippi or the civil rights movement. Chris Myers Asch has weaved the crucial historical facts relating to two juggernaughts from Sunflower County, Mississippi - Fannie Lou Hamer and Sen. James Eastland - into an incredibly compelling narrative. In so doing, Dr. Asch explains the journey of these two characters in a fair, hard-hitting way that does not unnecessarily deride Sen. Eastland or excessively over-promote Ms. Hamer. He just tells it like it is. I went through two highlighters underlining my favorite passages!
I particularly enjoyed Dr. Asch's masterful ability to highlight the historical irony surrounding these two extraordinary figures: despite Ms. Hamer's long fight to bring voting rights to blacks in Mississippi, Sen. Eastland - and not Ms. Hamer - in many ways emerged (at least during their lifetimes) as having adapted better to the social and political changes brought about by the civil rights movement. Talk about food for thought.
Having worked with Dr. Asch in Sunflower County and having followed his career with keen interest, I am thrilled we all have an opportunity to appreciate the important contribution he has made to American historical scholarship.
Shawn Raymond
Houston, Texas
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