Synopses & Reviews
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Chapter 1.
Winner of the 2006 Richard W. Leopold Prize from the Organization of American Historians
Winner of the 2006 George Pendleton Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government
"Not only has [Schneller] given us his remarkable insight into one man's story of courage, perseverance and determination, but he has framed that dramatic experience within the larger narration of American race relations in the twentieth centuryà. Anyone desiring a more complete understanding of African Americans' struggle to desegregate the armed forces will find this book indispensable."
Journal of American History
"A marvelous book. Schneller takes what might first appear to be a fairly narrow topic and offers a sweeping, well-researched account which places the question of race at the Naval Academy in the context of the Navy and the Nation."
International Journal of Maritime History
"Describes for the first time the difficulties Wesley Brown endured and the concerted effort by a [tight knot' of southern upperclassmen to oust him using racial epithets, ostracism, and demerits."
Washington Post
"This detailed story is one that has been long overdue in being told. Dr. Schneller has told it exceedingly well."
Proceedings/US Naval Institute
"This richly researched and judiciously written study facilitates deeper comprehension of how institutional racism preserved white hegemony in the U.S. Navy until Midshipman Wesley Brown detonated its color barrier."
Darlene Clark Hine, author of A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America
"A comprehensive and compelling work. Schneller explores the lives of the pioneering black midshipmen in intensely interesting detail."
David P. Colley, author of Blood For Dignity: The Story Of The First Integrated Combat Unit In The U.S. Army
"A remarkable book. Wesley Brown's journey through the U.S. Naval Academy shortly after WWII is a story of one man's strength, perseverance and courage in forging a new era in the grand tradition of naval leadership."
John Lehman, former Secretary of the Navy, member of the 9/11 Commission
"In well-documented detail and vivid prose, Breaking the Color Barrier captures the arduous, often tragic struggle black naval cadets were compelled to wage. This is history that rises to its memorable subject."
William Loren Katz, author of Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage
"Traces the long and bitter struggle to integrate the U.S. Naval Academy. . . . Breaking the Color Barrier is an engrossing account of how an American institution struggled to deal with its racist past and ultimately triumphed in the fight to become integrated."
Shipmate Magazine
>"A thoroughly researched, well-balanced account."
Choice
Only five black men were admitted to the United States Naval Academy between Reconstruction and the beginning of World War II. None graduated, and all were deeply scarred by intense racial discrimination, ranging from brutal hazing incidents to the institutionalized racist policies of the Academy itself.
Breaking the Color Barrier examines the black community's efforts to integrate the Naval Academy, as well as the experiences that black midshipmen encountered at Annapolis. Historian Robert J. Schneller analyzes how the Academy responded to demands for integration from black and white civilians, civil rights activists, and politicians, as well as what life at the Academy was like for black midshipmen and the encounters they had with their white classmates.
In 1949, Midshipman Wesley Brown achieved what seemed to be the impossible: he became the first black graduate of the Academy. Armed with intelligence, social grace, athleticism, self-discipline, and an immutable pluck, as well as critical support from friends and family, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and the Executive Department, Brown was able to confront and ultimately shatter the Academy's tradition of systematic racial discrimination.
Based on the Navy's documentary records and on personal interviews with scores of midshipmen and naval officers, Breaking the Color Barrier sheds light on the Academy's first step in transforming itself from a racist institution to one that today ranks equal opportunity among its fundamental tenets.
Review
“Not only has [Schneller] given us his remarkable insight into one man's story of courage, perseverance and determination, but he has framed that dramatic experience within the larger narration of American race relations in the twentieth century…. Anyone desiring a more complete understanding of African Americans' struggle to desegregate the armed forces will find this book indispensable.”
“A marvelous book. Schneller takes what might first appear to be a fairly narrow topic and offers a sweeping, well-researched account which places the question of race at the Naval Academy in the context of the Navy and the nation.”
“Describes for the first time the difficulties Wesley Brown endured and the concerted effort by a ‘tight knot’ of Southern upperclassmen to oust him using racial epithets, ostracism, and demerits.”
“This detailed story is one that has been long overdue in being told. Dr. Schneller has told it exceedingly well.”
“This richly researched and judiciously written study facilitates deeper comprehension of how institutional racism preserved white hegemony in the U.S. Navy until Midshipman Wesley Brown detonated its color barrier.”
Review
"As one of the `normal, well-balanced [female] adults' who own guns and as one of the 10 percent of hunters who are women, I applaud this eye-opening, complex, challenging book, a frank account of why we hunt and why we love guns which effectively punctures the myths about women, hunting, and guns."-Diane Humphrey Lueck,University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Outreach Specialist, International Becoming an Outdoors-Woman Program
Review
"The first feminist manifesto on women and guns. Closely reasoned, meticulously researched, yet accessibly written, this book's appeal spans the entire political spectrum. It will enlighten committed pacifists and feminists no less than advocates of self-defense, with its theme that so long as women are perceived—and perceive themselves—as too weak to defend themselves, non-violence is not a choice, but merely a culturally assigned role."-Don B. Kates,coauthor The Great American Gun Debate
Review
"Gun Women explores the relationship between firearms and women from many perspectives, both historical and modern, while also acknowledging the role guns have had in shaping our national character. The authors continually remind us that women who own guns are not the victims of their own fear of being attacked nor of the efforts of the firearm industry to market to them. Introducing "gun women" as intelligent, capable people, this book breaks down the gender and political stereotypes that people have about women who use guns."-Shari LeGate,Executive Director, Women's Shooting Sports Foundation
Review
"What should people do when they must face a criminal by themselves? Passive behavior is certainly not the safest course of action. Stange and Oyster take on the hard questions about women's fears of--and use of--guns, in virtually every imaginable context. They convincingly show that these fears are more likely to endanger women's lives and those they love than they are to save them." -John R. Lott, Jr., -John R. Lott Jr.,Senior Research Scholar, School of Law, Yale University, and author of More Guns, Less Crime
Review
"A lively mix of memoir, cultural and historical analysis, statistics, and cross-generational profiles of women who shoot
blasting the notion that feminism and firearms are incompatible." -Peace News,
Synopsis
The African-American Community's Battle to Combat the U.S. Naval Academy's Legacy of Racism
Synopsis
Winner of the 2006 Richard W. Leopold Prize from the Organization of American Historians
Winner of the 2006 George Pendleton Prize from the Society for History in the Federal Government
Only five black men were admitted to the United States Naval Academy between Reconstruction and the beginning of World War II. None graduated, and all were deeply scarred by intense racial discrimination, ranging from brutal hazing incidents to the institutionalized racist policies of the Academy itself.
Breaking the Color Barrier examines the black community's efforts to integrate the Naval Academy, as well as the experiences that black midshipmen encountered at Annapolis. Historian Robert J. Schneller analyzes how the Academy responded to demands for integration from black and white civilians, civil rights activists, and politicians, as well as what life at the Academy was like for black midshipmen and the encounters they had with their white classmates.
In 1949, Midshipman Wesley Brown achieved what seemed to be the impossible: he became the first black graduate of the Academy. Armed with intelligence, social grace, athleticism, self-discipline, and an immutable pluck, as well as critical support from friends and family, Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, and the Executive Department, Brown was able to confront and ultimately shatter the Academys tradition of systematic racial discrimination.
Based on the Navys documentary records and on personal interviews with scores of midshipmen and naval officers, Breaking the Color Barrier sheds light on the Academys first step in transforming itself from a racist institution to one that today ranks equal opportunity among its fundamental tenets.
Synopsis
Women, we are told, should not own guns. Women, we are told, are more likely to be injured by their own guns than to fend off an attack themselves. This "fact" is rooted in a fundamental assumption of female weakness and vulnerability. Why should a woman
not be every bit as capable as a man of using a firearm in self-defense?
And yet the reality is that millions of American women--somewhere between 11,000,000 and 17,000,000--use guns confidently and competently every day. Women are hunting, using firearms in their work as policewomen and in the military, shooting for sport, and arming themselves for personal security in ever-increasing numbers. What motivates women to possess firearms? What is their relationship to their guns? And who exactly are these women? Crucially, can a woman be a gun-owner and a feminist too?
Women's growing tendency to arm themselves has in recent years been political fodder for both the right and the left. Female gun owners are frequently painted as "trying to be like men" (the conservative perspective) or "capitulating to patriarchal ideas about power" (the liberal critique). Eschewing the polar extremes in the heated debate over gun ownership and gun control, and linking firearms and feminism in novel fashion, Mary Zeiss Stange and Carol K. Oyster here cut through the rhetoric to paint a precise and unflinching account of America's gun women.
About the Author
Robert J. Schneller Jr. is an official historian in the Contemporary History Branch of the U.S. Navys Naval Historical Center and holds a Ph.D. in military history from Duke University. He is an award-winning biographer and historian, and has published several books on American naval history, including Shield and Sword: The United States Navy and the Persian Gulf War, and A Quest for Glory: A Biography of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren. He lives in Washington, D.C.