5 comments about Always Bring a Crowd!: The Story of Frank Lumpkin Steelworker.

1. This fine book centres on the familiar experience of company asset stripping and closure. But it also shows how the workers at Wisconsin Steel made two companies pay!

   After 75 years of making profit out of the 3,500 workers of Wisconsin Steel in Chicago, its owners, the directors of International Harvester, decided to dump the plant in a phoney sale. They kept the mortgage on the mill, transferred ownership to Envirodyne, a consulting company with 20 employees and no steel making experience, and even lent it the money to buy the plant! They did this to try to cheat the workers out of the $45 million in benefits promised in their union contract. Two years later, they called in the mortgage and closed the mill without notice and without paying the workersý severance pay or health benefits.

   The workers there, led by Frank Lumpkin and the Save Our Jobs Committee, fought for 18 years to get the money they were owed, and to stop any company ever again dumping their workers. And they won - in 1988 they got Harvester to pay out $14.8 million, and in 1995 they forced Envirodyne to pay $4 million.

   They also fought the wider struggle to rebuild the cityýs industry and fabric, to get workers back into work on public works projects, where the steel they produced was indispensable. They realised that services depend on industry: like most US cities, Chicagoýs bridges, streets, sewers, schools, hospitals and houses need structural repairs that would use all the steel its mills could produce.

   This book is also the story of Frank himself. He was one of the best workers, never late and never absent; his skills won him promotion to the tool room. He was always willing to pass on his skills to the younger generation, saying, ýIf you have knowledge, you have responsibility to share that knowledge. You canýt take it easy.ý ýIn order to learn you have to be able to teach and learn at the same time. That means we must listen and speak. We have to know each other. We have a similar cause. Together we can solve the problem. We need jobs that will feed, clothe and house our families. Nothing else is sufficient.ý




2. In reading "Bring a Crowd," I was struck at how much this book goes beyond biography. It spans most of the 20th century and covers things that are almost never taught in most high school and college American history curricula. Mrs. Lumpkin touches on all of the core issues that continue to haunt modern-day America: capitalism, racism and opportunity. If this book doesn't present an honest depiction of these issues through the eyes of one man, then few books do. Frank Lumpkin has done everything from boxing to sharecropping. Everything he does has been won with a lot of courage, hard work and sheer pluck. He is a role model for most aspiring Americans, who having come from some other place-- probably not as accomodating as the U.S.--simply want something better. From racist rural Florida to the labor battles of South Chicago, Frank Lumpkin has been an active part of history that continues to be a mystery to most working Americans. How did we get a 40-hour week? How did we get paid vacations? How can we protect ourselves from dangerous workplaces? How are we protected if our employers abuse our labor and loyalty? In Frank Lumpkin, we can see how these issues evolved and how one man's struggle benefited us all. This book should be taught in every course on American history and made into a movie. Morgan Freeman should play the part of Frank Lumpkin. I can't remember the last book I read where I felt this was an essential reading into my own identity as an American. Read and rejoice that people like Frank Lumpkin have fought so bravely and for so long despite horrendous odds.



3. This is the story of an extraordinary "common man." Sounds like a logical impossibility, doesn't it? But in Always Bring a Crowd, the story of steelworker Frank Lumpkin, you will meet such a man, a hero for our times. You will read a life story that emerges from the blast furnace of American history-the part of American history that is generally shielded from our eyes. (And speaking of shielding, if the AFL-CIO doesn't promote and mass-produce this book, it's not serious about gaining strength in American politics.) In these days of wealth and luxury for a few, we all see the decline of our cities, farms, industrial base, schools, health care system and pensions. Our mass media, our public intellectuals, our politicians wring their hands and say, Too bad, but there is no way to counter the "global" and "high-tech" forces sending the majority of us on this pell-mell descent in a handbasket bound for economic hell. Or they say, Just be patient and await the "trickle down." Or they ignore the growing numbers of poorly paid and insecure salary and wage workers and say, That's just the way things are. Yet here stands the example of Frank Lumpkin. His life story shows us how to get out of the handbasket and start building up a better society. It will take union power. No other social force has its potential influence. Lumpkin demonstrated this in the campaign he's best known for in the Chicago area-the 17-year fight that prevented a giant steel firm and its holding companies from cheating 2,700 workers in a corrupt plant shutdown scheme. That's just his longest fight, however. The book recounts the effective role he has played in every other kind of social justice struggle our country has seen, including police brutality, oppression of women, fair housing, fair employment and tenants rights, among others. The insight, charisma, patience, and motivation needed to "bring a crowd" takes creativity and genius possessed by very few. As union man Ed Sadlowski says of Lumpkin in the foreword, "Maybe, if you're lucky enough, you'll cross paths with someone like him within your own lifetime." What path is Lumpkin on? As this book shows, people like Frank Lumpkin don't just happen. Born in 1916, Lumpkin comes from a family whose upward mobility began on plantations and sharecropping land in Georgia and then in the orange groves of Florida at a time when Afro-Americans did most of the picking. Big, powerful and smart-and fortified by a family that prized work, study and standing up against racism-Frank worked in fields, chauffeured, boxed as "K.O." Lumpkin and moved to Buffalo and became a steelworker in the early 1940s. Author Bew Lumpkin uses a unique structure to tell the story. The ordinary chronology of biography is there. But also, assembled like a collage, are the voices of workers and neighbors and friends joining those of the family. Those who know of the American Communist movement only through the "Russian spies" and "dupes of aliens" and "fellow travelers" stereotypes of the J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy/Nixon/Reagan line, or from the more liberal strains of anti-communism, will get an entirely different and more complex view of that history in this book. Bea Lumpkin captures the excitement of the challenges that brought the best out in Frank and his fellow workers, spouses and neighbors as they fought in word and deed to make a steel company obey the law and the union contract. The company kept shifting corporate skins like a snake, but Frank and the young labor attorney Tom Geoghegan (GAY-gen) finally cornered it. The workers won $4 million, thanks to bankruptcy laws designed to help corporations skip out workers and their communities, but that was only about a sixth of what they were owed. (Also see Geoghegan's Which Side Are You On?) Lumpkin shows that the worker's point of view is a far broader and wiser perspective than the caricatures like Archie Bunker, Ralph Kramden and the wolf-whistling, racist and profane construction workers of our commercials and movies. A reader will enjoy imagining what achievements could be won on a national scale if the confused, disheartened and insecure working people of this country had a leader, a movement, an organization with this political effectiveness.

   John Woodford




4. This is the story of an extraordinary "common man." Sounds like a logical impossibility, doesn't it? But in "Always Bring a Crowd," the story of steelworker Frank Lumpkin, you will meet such a man, a hero for our times.

   Lumpkin is best known for leading the 17-year fight that prevented a giant Chicago-area steel firm and its shell-game holding companies from cheating 2,700 pink-slipped workers in a corrupt plant-shutdown scheme.

   That's just his longest fight, however. The book recounts the effective roles he has played in every other kind of social justice struggle our country has seen, including police brutality, oppression of women, fair housing, fair employment and tenants rights, among others. Lumpkin wins most of them because he learned how to bring a crowd.

   If you're interested in organizing or joining any concerted effort to improve our country for all of its people, reading this book lets you serve a sort of apprenticeship under Lumpkin. As union man Ed Sadlowski says of Lumpkin in the foreword, "Maybe, if you're lucky enough, you'll cross paths with someone like him within your own lifetime."

   What path is Lumpkin on? As this biography shows, people like Frank Lumpkin don't just happen. Born in 1916, Lumpkin comes from a family whose upward mobility began on plantations and sharecropping land in Georgia and then in the orange groves of Florida at a time when Afro-Americans did most of the picking. Big, powerful and smart-and fortified by a family that prized work, study and standing up against racism-Frank toiled in fields, chauffeured, boxed as "K.O." Lumpkin and moved to Buffalo and became a steelworker in the early 1940s.

   Lumpkin is one of 10 brothers and sisters. And Always Bring A Crowd is a family saga as well as a story that represents the best qualities of the Afro-American people and Americans in general. All of the Lumpkins appear throughout the book, and author Bea Lumpkin, Frank's wife, paints their portraits and captures their characters in speech as deftly as any novelist. Led by the examples of their parents, who never quit struggling to improve the family's conditions, and of young activist siblings like sister Jonnie, most of the Lumpkins got involved in union and other progressive work. Several joined or worked in tandem with the Communist Party of the United States. The WWII-era lynching in uniform of Taft Rollins, a Black soldier, was a catalyst that set them on the path of seeing a different socioeconomic system as key in fighting racism in the many forms they encountered it.

   Bea Lumpkin has devised a flexible structure to tell her husband's story. The ordinary chronology of biography is there, plus 67 photographs of tremendous documentary and emotional force. Also, assembled like a collage, are the voices, voices of workers and neighbors and friends joining those of the family.

   The book explains how, despite its failures and weaknesses, the American Communist movement attracted a great many workers and activists during and after the Depression Era when Lumpkin was growing up. Any fair-minded reader will conclude from this book that a lot of warm-heartedness, gumption and humanity formed the motives and objectives of many patriotic Americans attracted to the party and the socialist/communist ideology.

   Bea Lumpkin captures the excitement of the challenges that brought the best out in Frank and his fellow workers, spouses and neighbors, as they fought with weapons of word, deed, votes and law to make the Wisconsin Steel Co. fulfill its contractual obligations to them. The company kept shifting corporate skins like a snake, but Frank and the young labor attorney Tom Geoghegan (GAY-gen) finally cornered it. The workers won $4 million. As a result, however, of bankruptcy laws designed to help corporations skip out on workers and their communities, that sum was only about a sixth of what they were owed. (Also see Geoghegan's "Which Side Are You On?", another great account of this struggle.)

   Lumpkin was also active in Chicago politics, ran for unsuccessfully for the state legislature, and continues to fight for job-creation and living-wage programs to this day.

   Along the way, Frank and Bea visited Chile, Cuba, Mozambique, Senegal, Western Europe and other countries. His observations about these countries, their economies, the labor movement and progressive politics are splendid travelogues from a worker's point of view. How many times do you read of local strike activity as a feature of foreign journeys? It tells you more about a country than does reading about cuisine, hotel rates and great views.

   The worker's point of view is a far broader and wiser perspective than the caricatures like Archie Bunker, Ralph Kramden and the wolf-whistling, racist and profane construction workers of our commercials and movies would lead us to believe.




5. Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, or so it has been said. Sometimes, luck can hit you by just being in the right place at the right time. Whichever the case maybe, I consider myself to be an extremely lucky guy. Not only have I crossed paths with Frank Lumpkin, I have "walked the line" with Frank in support of many, many just causes.

   For anyone who makes the choice to stand up for something in which they believe, "Always Bring A Crowd" is a must read. This is a book that chronicles the eighty year lifetime of a common working man who, with great ease and enjoyment, rises to meet each new challenge that our society throws his way. Reading Frank's journey provides one with not only a sense of where we have been, but where we need to go. The prominant issues which have confronted our society, and the movements to rectify the wrongs are all captured in this book, told through the eyes of Frank's wife and comrade Beatrice. This important story teaches us that through solidarity, we can change the course of history and overcome the wrongs inflicted by our societal greeds.

   The hard won victories of which "Always Bring A Crowd" records, serves to inspire and regenerate the batteries for the ongoing struggle of economic justice, peace, and freedom. Much like Frank Lumpkin, this book captures what is the best about the working class.

2 comments about Black Prisoner of War: A Conscientious Objector's Vietnam Memoir.

1. This book was not worth reading under its 1975 incarnation and is even less so now. All the factual inaccuracies and mis-spellings seem to have survived intact and so has Mr. Daly's boring justification of the unjustifiable, namely why he completely sold out both friends and country while he was a P.O.W. during the Vietnam War.

   On one level it's easy enough to empathize with Mr. Daly, an unsophisticated, religious young man, a conscientious objector, who was tricked into joining the army by the promise of a non-combat assignment. Mr. Daly promptly found himself in a rifle company in Vietnam where he was soon taken prisoner and held for several years in the hellish jungle camps run by the Viet Cong, suffering incalculable deprivations and abuse; all American P.O.W.'s did. However, Mr. Daly lost any claim to legitimate conscientious objector status the day he signed a letter written by another member of the infamous "Peace Committee" that asked his Vietnamese captors for the right to join the North Vietnamese Army. He did this not in the jungle but in one of the camps in Hanoi, where he was already currying favor with the NVA by writing and broadcasting anti-American propaganda. In return for these and other actions Mr. Daly and the other members of the PC, always few in number, were accorded special, more lenient treatment. The criminal charges that were brought against Mr. Daly and all other members of the PC after repatriation were dropped when one of their number committed suicide rather than face his imminent trial; none were "acquitted" as the book's jacket states. Rather, Mr. Daly and the others were given a pass on their dishonorable actions in an effort to begin healing the country's wounds from a long and pointless war.




2. This book can be rated fairly only as what it is: a very rare narrative from a soldier who had a unique (but not unpredictable) experience. It should be available to all historians of American and Vietnam studies as a view that opens other doors: the events and background that made PFC Daily react as he did. The Army did not well train all soldiers and the 1960's were a very personal journey for all. Daily by his own words was lost before he was captured;lost inside and in society. America let the standard for soldiers slip rather than just this single soldier who was failed by his officer corps and country. I judge a veteran by how he views himself: as a part of a unit better said a family or otherwise. Daily is the failed soldier. I wonder if anything was changed from the first edition? I doubt his exact words were used...........

   The entire issue of Officer versus Enlisted POW is truly not well applied in a review of this book and should be studied in other places...3 stars for historical importance and less than one as a reading experience and my regret that the author was not better guided in the book writing as in his military experience.

No comments about Rising Son: Mets, Yankees, and My Journey to the Big Leagues.

4 comments about Deep in Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement.

1. Just finished reading " Deep In Our Hearts", a book I'd like to strongly recommend. It captures on a very personal level, the spirit of the Civil Rights era, from the perspective of nine different white women who were deeply involved in the struggle to bring about more racial justice. It is a moving tribute to all the heroes of that very difficult time. To all who were involved at the time or those who are the least bit curious of "what went down", you cannot fail to admire the stories of these brave women. This is history (herstory) as it should be related-from the participants.



2. Imagine leaving your comfortable world as you knew it in the erly 1960's. Young white women; some from the north, some from the south. Rural and urban, college kids, middle class, working class and just plain poor. Heading to a dangerous world and joining the early days of the Civil Rights Movement. Leaving behind the scorn, disdain, and ridicule of family and friends. Walking into a climate of hate and bigotry, and joining in civil disobedience against segregation. Walking in the picket lines, sometimes fearing for your life; organizing, and joining in singing hymns of freedom. Going from tears of frustration to smiles of great joy, while hitching a ride on that freedom train and holding on for dear life.
   One recent eveing at Northern Lights Book Store and Cafe in St. Johnsbury, Vt., 70 people heard two local women who participated passionately in that movement. The authors read from their book, Deep In Our Hearts: Nine White Women in the Freedom Movement.
   The book is an eloquent and powerful one that takes us back to one of the most tumultuous periods in American history; the erly days of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Freedom Summer, voter registrations, lunch counter sit-ins and the rise of Black Power and the women's movement. Deep In Our Hearts is a collection of essays, that take us into the lives of a group of young women who were transformed by the Civil Rights Movement.
   The audience listened as Penny Patch looked back and read softly. "I understand well that what was between us will never be again, but still, that experience remains at the core of who I am. The fact that some of us had deep friendships that crossed all racial lines is simply a miracle. For short periods of time, in those early yers, we leaped over all the history and all of the minefields between us."
   Perched on a stool and sipping warm tea to sooth a sore throat, Theresa Del Pozzo read from the book. "My involement with the movement began as a moral reaction to the blatant injustice of segregation and the denial of basic human rights of African-Americans. Along the way I got an education in the intricate patterns of racism and began to experience what I think as the small-c culture of the African_American community: the wisdom, dignity, strength, humor, gentleness and creativeness of its everyday life and people. The experience of living within the black world changed forever the person I was to become and the way I live my adult life."
   Listening to the authors as they told their stories one could not help but admire their courage and admire this courageous book. They stand as powerful testaments to a time when the goal of universal justice was truly in sight and to the hope that a new generation of blacks and whites will take up the challenge to make the world a better place.

   Marvin Minkler of the North Star Monthly




3. This collection of stories, detailing the lives of nine white women active in the fight to end racial segregation and discrimination in this country, is sure to touch your heart. It is a must read for anyone interested in learning more about the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. I couldn't put it down.



4. Forty years ago, in regard to the "race question," white people in this country fell into five general categories: those who never gave a thought to race-based segregation and discrimination (the numbers of whom could probably be counted on one hand); those who through ignorance or paranoia thought that African-Americans were in one way or another "inferior" beings, which somehow justified our own brand of apartheid; those who knew or suspected that the "inferiority" premise applied to African-Americans was bogus but who profited from that fiction being maintained; those who knew or believed that the inferiority idea was false but who, through reluctance or apathy, chose to do or say nothing about it, and those who, deep in their hearts, knew that the inferiority thesis was false and cruelly unfair, knew that our apatheid system made a lie of all the claims of equality our nation prided itself on, and who chose to confront it in an attempt to bring segregation and discrimination to an end through personal involvement and direct action. The nine white women who contributed to this book the stories of their development and their involvement in the civil rights struggle were of that last category. They never really saw themselves as particularly strong or smart, although their writing shows them to be exceptionally articulate, and none of them were brought up by their families to become involved in that fight. They took it upon themselves to make their own stands and become part of that effort regardless of the personal risks. "Deep In Our Hearts" is aptly named - what springs out at us from their stories is their simple strength, the heart-deep commitment to social justice, that helped make this country face up to its promises to all of its citizens. That they came from genuinely different backgrounds reflects the diversity that sets our country apart and which puts the lie to common assumptions about them, such as that they were born of affluent families from the northeast and went south with Ivy League educations and high-flown notions of setting things right. What is also remarkable about their stories and their lives is that they have continued with that commitment to equality and fairness in varied ways; they never saw fit to rest upon their laurels once this nation recognized, in words at least, that racial segregation and discrimination were wrong and brought down the obvious barriers to equality. These little stories, none more than forty-eight pages long, also spell out how their subsequent involvement in combating the Vietnam War was a logical progression, the same struggle on a different front. Although some of them became front-line soldiers in the fight to free women from their own set of shackles, all of them contributed to modern feminism and women's rights more by their actions than by their words. To them, and to the many whose stories who are not in this book, we all owe a debt of gratitude. If not for them this country may not have been able to look itself in the eye in the bathroom mirror. The collective lesson of these stories is that one need not come from uncommon beginnings in order to develop the will to lead extraordinary, adventuresome, purposeful lives. Read their stories, be inspired without being preached to, and put some meat on the dry bones of history.

2 comments about Great Black Leaders: Ancient and Modern (Journal of African Civilizations, Vol. 9).

1. I think that it is a must read. I certainly learned a lot from it.



2. I found this book to have a wealth of valuable information about the lives of many black leaders. I for one have come to associate scholarly integrity with Ivan Van Sertima's name, which contributed heavily to buying this book. However I found that impression tarnished by the obvious ommission of Elijah Muhammad from this book. I am continually seeing authors make a concerted attempt at writing him out of history, when the Nation of Islam under his charge, is on the history books having impacted Black people around the world very significantly. I could see if Malcolm X, who was included, was responsible for a significant portion of the Nation of Islam's affect on Blacks in America as has been incorrectly perpetuated for the last 15 years or so, but that is not accurate. If Van Sertima is going to group "Black Leaders" together who have impacted blacks, I am baffled as to why he would put leaders such as Hannibal, Shaka Zulu and Kwame Nkrumah and then put a student of a true leader, who, according to the same criteria the above men were chosen, is actually greater in stature. It is equal to omitting Martin Luther King in an effort to over-exaggerate the accomplishments of Jesse Jackson (MLK's student). Many other "so-called scholars" have made their efforts suspect with the same overt attempts. Perhaps if they would leave their emotions and political correctness out of their scholarship, the rest of us would take them seriously.

1 comments about Complete Jacob Lawrence.

1. Jacob Lawrence spent his fascinating, fruitful life building
   an enormous contribution to the world of art and this two-volume
   set captures nearly every aspect of it in an absolutely beautiful
   fashion... owning this set is an honor. Open either volume ANYWHERE
   and it becomes immediately clear that the authors and publisher have
   done their work well. To have us understand at the outset that
   the artist operated far beyond the scope of the ordinary and into a
   full grasp of all sorts of levels of abstraction is quite an
   accomplishment in and of itself. These books do it. To be able to see
   all the known paintings, drawings and sketches is great. To also read
   about the life of such a brilliant person, the background for his
   works, his long and
   "without-whom-it-wouldn't-have-been-possible"marriage to his
   equally-talented and beautiful wife Gwen, along with the history of the
   styles and media pushes the palette into the soul of the reader!

No comments about The Colored Cadet at West Point: Autobiography of Lieutenant Henry Ossian Flipper, U. S. A., First Graduate of Color from the U. S. Military Academy (Blacks in the American West).

No comments about Dred Scott's Advocate: A Biography of Roswell M. Field (Missouri Biography Series).

No comments about Racial Politics at the Crossroads: Memphis Elects Dr. W.W. Herenton.

1 comments about William Sheppard: Congo's African-American Livingstone.

1. William E. Phipps reconstructs the past and tells the story of the African American Livingston utilizing thorough research. Phipps details his preparation throughout his adolescent years, his journey to the Congo, his efforts to challenge human right violations and his return back to America. The author reveals to the readers to the forgotten African American missionary, which has been ignored by Black history for so long. There are two significance reasons why the story of William Sheppard has not been shared. First, Sheppard resigned from the Congo mission at its peak, due to being confronted about having affairs and an illegitimate child. Second, historians studying African American religion have paid relatively little attention to the overwhelmingly Caucasian Protestant churches. Sheppard was a pioneer missionary and an explorer that was second only to Livingston and Stanley in the opening of Central Africa. Phillips crafts a historical study in a seamless outline about Sheppard to help describe the colonization of the Congo. It is a perfect book for students wanting to learn the true story of King Leopold's Congo.