The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion (The Sunday Times Bestseller)

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If Black Americans have a new “reverse migration” back into the South’s metropolitan cities, they can create a system that nurtures and empowers Black America far beyond anything done thus far at local, state, and federal levels. Statistics such as these, along with the work of theorists and historians, are peppered throughout the pages. The Devil You Know is a groundbreaking manifesto, proposing nothing short of the most audacious power play by Black people in the history of this country.

The severing point is often whether you believe, as King did, that America is in need of redemption and capable of it—if you believe that America is just sick, and needs to be healed—or if you believe that what ails America on the racial question is terminal and hopeless. Horne also manages to weave in a selection of quotations chosen by Adshead, from The Merchant of Venice (“prick us, do we not bleed? We may, temporarily, absorb the pain felt by the patients, and other victims, about whom we have just read. Tanisha Ford, a professor of history at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, doesn’t necessarily rail against the book; however, she does pit her own proclivities against its framework: “As a historian, I wish he had spent more time exploring the nuances of the Black migration framework the book hinges upon. Finally, Ford considers a strength: “… its affirmation of Black Americans as a formidable political bloc with whom the nation must reckon.With that therapeutic process in mind, when I had finished reading I reflected on how those stories made me feel. He says that he will never excuse the South, but ‘essentially) ‘really, have you seen how bad the North is’ (there’s a set of this around page 60)?

Again, the institution of slavery was the impetus to the war, but political power was the primary objective. But I know from my own experience that gaining insight … is transformative, and I will be by your side. With real joy, Blow salutes the nurturing nature of all-Black and majority-Black communities, particularly in the South.

Louis and bullying white diners in DC I knew that whatever this was about it definitely wasn't helping Black people. However, because I am so familiar with the history covered, for me personally this comes in at 4-STARs. He disparages hope, ignoring the fact that hope is what galvanized the Modern Civil Rights Movement and kept (and keeps! There’s only one thing she’s determined to check off, but it’s gonna require the assistance of her brother’s best friend who is willing to lend a hand in exchange for some tutoring of his own.