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**CW: lynching, anti-Black violence

First of all, shout out to the Seattle Public Library for having really cool books like this...for free!! We love that.

The audiobook for Stony the Road was so engaging, I so enjoyed the narrator's voice. I also think this book is an appropriate length. Sometimes nonfic books are too long for me, and I end skipping around halfway through. But if anything, I wanted more content!

This book covers A LOT: the period after slavery ended (Reconstruction), the origins of white supremacy and the eugenics movement of the early 20th century, Harlem Renaissance and the emergence of a New Negro aka The Black Elite. It was all interesting and mostly well researched (we'll get back to that in a min). But I wanted more about the rise of Jim Crow, since it is in the title.

Gates discussed several of the political and cultural repercussions for Black people during the post-Civil War period, but shies away from really getting into the white supremacist terror Black people, especially in the American South, experienced during the turn of the 20th century. I think there was maybe one mention of lynching at all, unless I missed that whole part. Thousands of Black people were lynched in the span of less than a decade due to white people being angry they could no longer own them, and I definitely think that deserved more of a discussion here. I wanted to know some of these people's stories.

Something I really appreciated is that Gates directly points out the classism and general disdain Black people in the North during the post-war period had towards formerly enslaved Black people, especially during the Great Migration. Gates gave a lot of evidence of popular intellectual ideas about "advancing the Negro Race." Many of them were predicated on class divides and a perceived superiority over "the ignorant darkies." And ultimately, the ideals of people like Alain Locke, Booker T. Washington, and W.E.B. DuBois were centered on being desirable and comparable in intellect to white people.

The biggest reason this isn't a 5-star read for me is that I'm disappointed that Gates only quoted one Black woman in this entire book. Stony the Road could've been better researched in that regard. There were plenty of Black women, especially through the church, who were doing anti-lynching and activist work after slavery ended. Gates definitely relied on content from big name male public figures from the period (i.e. DuBois, Locke, Cullen, Hughes). I wished he had discussed the ideas of more women and people from the South.

Overall there is a lot to learn and think about here. What an interesting and extremely relevant point in time. I definitely recommend.



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I very much enjoyed this audiobook, the narrator is amazing. So much to unpack! RTC.