BOOK REVIEWS
Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist’s Memoir of the Jim Crow South ...continued from page 63
:LQIUHG5HPEHUW¶V VWRU\ LQFRUSRUDWHV FRWWRQ SODQWDWLRQV WKH KX - miliation of Jim Crow segregation and the legacy of slavery; and the trauma of lynchings, mass incarceration, and police brutality — all “premised on the anguish of racial hierarchies propelled by the myth and evil of white supremacy.” This book also includes many of Win- fred’s carvings and paintings, which were highly acclaimed for their quality and relevant social messages. They incorporate the “lawless- QHVVDQGPREYLROHQFH´XVHGWRWHUURUL]HPDUJLQDOL]HGLVHQIUDQFKLVH and suppress Black communities and individuals. Born into poverty in 1945 and subjected to all-too-common rac- ist inequities and cruelties, including incarceration, it was in prison where Winfred had the opportunity to discover and nurture his ar- tistic abilities. His works of art expose “decades of convict leasing, exploitative sharecropping, and abject poverty”; in addition to other “horrors of prison” such as chain gangs. He described chain gangs as “one of the most ruthless places in the world. The county owns them, and there are no rules or regulations governing them. If you can’t toss the dirt high enough, they crack you upside the head with nightsticks. If while you are digging you happen to dig into a hornet’s nest or come across a water moccasin, you will be shot if you run. Laws that protect prisoners from extreme hot or cold temperatures are also ignored by prison guards.” :LQIUHG UHFDOOV ZKHQ DGXOWV LQ 5DQGROSK &RXQW\ *HRUJLD RUJD - QL]HGLQ RU ZLWKWKHDVVLVWDQFHRIODZ\HUVIURPWKH1DWLRQDO Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). They demanded the right to vote by being put on the voting rolls. Out of ap- proximately six thousand adult Black residents, about three hundred were ever able to vote. Some of these activists were musicians who could not even enter the venues where they played through the front GRRUV7KHORFDOVKHUL̆GLGQRWKHVLWDWHWRXVHKLVQLJKWVWLFNDQG¿UH hose on these residents, to prevent their names from being added to WKHYRWLQJUROOV$IWHUWKH\RUJDQL]HGDQGSURWHVWHGPRVWRIWKHPORVW their jobs and incomes, including teachers. Black residents were also arrested “for trying to buy tickets at the Whites Only window of the movie theater.” Their demonstrations then grew larger, with confrontations over segregated restaurants and swimming pools. “The police brought in dogs and burned dem- onstrators with electric cattle prods.” After Congress passed the 1964 &LYLO5LJKWVOHJLVODWLRQ³ZKLWHVLQWKHFRPPXQLW\EHDW%ODFNDFWLYLVWV with tire irons and baseball bats” during demonstrations. Winfred de- scribes it as “real dangerous back in those times. White people had guns and they were killing Black people in those marches far more
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