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Summary
Summary
Starting in the 1860s, the people of Covert, Michigan, broke laws and barriers to attempt what then seemed impossible: to love one's neighbor as oneself. This is the inspiring, true story of an extraordinary town where blacks and whites lived as equals.
Author Notes
Anna-Lisa Cox has a M.Phil in Social Anthropology and a Ph.D in American History. She has received The Gilder Lehrman Foundation Fellowship for Research at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York and is now a Scholar in residence at Chicago's Newberry Library.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Covert, Mich., is home to 2,600 residents today-1,200 Caucasians, 900 African-Americans and 500 Hispanics. That's an unusual mix for a rural Midwestern town, which, as Cox reveals, has an intriguing history. Focusing on the late 19th-century, Cox, a historian at Chicago's Newberry Library, recounts how Covert became racially integrated just after the Civil War and how its residents lived harmoniously thereafter, even as other American towns practiced segregation or ended up bedeviled by racial hatred. Some of the blacks who made their way to Covert had been born into slavery; others had always been free in name if not in practice. Many of the whites who made their way to Covert from the East arrived as confirmed abolitionists, with affiliations in some cases to the Congregational Church. Farming or logging mills provided steady income for most residents, and the relatively low level of poverty aided racial concord. Cox's frequent speculations about what specific Covert residents thought or did mar the book somewhat, and her flat prose fails to convey the vitality of the women and men she finds so fascinating. But Cox's optimism is infectious, and her recovery of Covert's nearly lost history admirable. (Feb. 6) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
In the nineteenth century, when much of the nation was solidifying racial discrimination and barriers between the races and to achievement for former slaves, the small town of Covert, Michigan, was embarking on a bold social order--equality among the races. Historian Cox details the founding families--black and white--who established Covert in 1860 as a mixed-race community that defied the social conventions of the time, electing blacks to powerful political positions and providing a haven for economic development for achievers of all races. Drawing on historical documents from newspaper accounts to personal diaries and town records, Cox portrays the determined individuals who helped one another in hard times, built schools for all to attend, encouraged church membership for all, and in myriad ways took a different path than that of a nation in the grip of Jim Crow and lynchings. This is a revealing look at a small town whose accomplishments have been virtually forgotten. --Vanessa Bush Copyright 2006 Booklist
Choice Review
Arguing that racism is not "natural" but deliberately constructed by individuals' choices, Cox, a Newberry Library scholar in residence, recounts the story of Covert, Michigan, a rural township that, starting in the 1860s, created integrated schools and churches and an environment in which some of its 8 percent black residents could accumulate substantial property, hold local political office, intermarry with whites, host integrated celebrations of emancipation, and sue whites successfully in the courts. In doing so, Covert's residents often defied not only Midwest custom, but state law. Cox does a superb job of evoking both the personalities of community members and the everyday economic and social realities of their environment. She convincingly demonstrates that no charismatic leader or political philosophy brought this unusual result; rather, it was due to the individual decisions of a multitude of people from diverse backgrounds who chose to create and maintain a culture of equality. This book, solidly based on local records, is engagingly written and accessible to readers with limited knowledge of history. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. The book should be acquired by public and undergraduate libraries. P. F. Field emerita, Ohio University
Kirkus Review
A gladdening, unsentimental chronicle of a Midwestern town that practiced racial equality against all late-19th-century odds. The town was Covert, Mich. "Starting in the 1860s the people of this place broke both laws and social expectations to develop a community of radical equality," writes Cox, scholar in residence at Chicago's Newberry Library. Though it was very much an abolitionist community, Covert was not a utopian experiment, the author makes plain. Yankees from Massachusetts, free black farmers from North Carolina, deeply accented Europeans, Native Americans and black frontier folk born and raised in the Midwest all gathered there to promote the idea that a vibrant community should tap the strengths of all its citizens. A series of small yet profound acts had big consequences. For example, a black man ran for elective office when it was still a crime, and a largely white electorate voted him in because he was the right person for the job. Working from local records, newspapers and personal reflections, Cox credits the town's integrated success to the most prosaic of reasons: Its residents were more interested in thriving economically than in expending energy on efforts to promote racism. "Covert's unusual culture not only blossomed but bore good harvest, while the rest of the nation saw the meager fruits of Reconstruction wither on the vine," the author notes. Still, it was never entirely about economic self-interest; Covertites were well aware of their anti-establishmentarianism and pursued it with thumb-nosing disregard for the bigotry in which the Midwest trafficked with gusto during the second half of the 19th century. After 50 years of going its own way, the town fell victim to changing demographics; as the graybeards died off, ignorance wheedled its way into the town's fabric, and Covert's rare time faded. Covert well deserves the limelight thrown by Cox as a grand example of decency and defiance of Jim Crow's gathering venality. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
After the Civil War, when the wider nation was turning its back on the promises of Reconstruction and its commitment to racial egalitarianism, blacks and whites in a small Michigan town lived together on a basis of singular racial equality. In her first book, Cox (scholar in residence, Newberry Lib.) traces the unique history of Covert from the 1860s to the 20th century. Drawing on a variety of sources, from obscure genealogical material to standard secondary studies, she intertwines the national scene of segregation and discrimination with a local story of relative racial equality. Six families, identified in a separate section, are the focus of this historic drama. Libraries with an interest in race relations in mid- to late 19th-century America, as well as those with the specific regional interest, would be wise to choose this distinctive work, even if they already own Sundiata Keita Cha-Jua's America's First Black Town: Brooklyn, Illinois, 1830-1915, a study of the country's first black-majority municipality.-Theresa McDevitt, Indiana Univ. of Pennsylvania Lib. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.