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Book Review of Blood Done Sign My Name : A True Story

Blood Done Sign My Name : A True Story
sharrona avatar reviewed on + 207 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 7


This author's description of his childhood and teenage years, in a variety of small towns and rural areas of the south, rang true to me. Many of the details he mentioned made me nod my head and say "Yes, that's the way it was in Virginia in the 1960s, too."

His ability to gently and calmly paint a real picture makes the facts of racial violence and the injustice that enabled it a shocking contrast. I remember these things too -- sit-ins, marches, the assassination of President Kennedy, of Medgar Evers, of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The question I kept asking myself as I listened to this book is "Why did we think things were OK the way they were back then?"

Excellently written, thought-provoking, and a true story that will stay with me for a long time. I must have read about it in the papers when it happened, but after hearing this book (in the author's own voice), it is unforgettable.