David Wright Faladé

Black Cloud Rising is a powerful, thought-provoking book set in the aftermath of the U.S. Civil War. Our narrator, Sergeant Richard Etheridge, is a recently freed slave, now serving with Union forces occupying the south. He is the son, by rape, of his former owner and was raised with that man's two white children. He never had their privileges, but he had more privileges than many slaves on the plantation, including the ability to read and write. It's this ability that gives his him non-com rank in the Union Army.

There's no easy way to wrap this book up into a tidy bundle because of the many issues it examines. Among these issues are—

• Etheridge's reflections on the new (but not fully changed) world he lives in.

•The extent to which and the ways in which former slaves adjust to their "freedom."

• The varying sorts of racist beliefs held by the white officers leading the negro troops Etheridge serves with.

• Post-war skirmishes with "bushwackers," who now live in the same swamps that had provided a home for runaway slaves.

• Reprisals taken by the Union army against the southerners who have refused to vow allegiance to the new, unified United States.

• The highly charged position in which Black non-coms find themselves, existing in a liminal space between Black enlisted men and white officers.

• The failure of whites in general, even those sympathetic to the cause, to see Blacks as fully human.

In other words, the complexities of this historical moment are myriad, and David Wright Faladé simplifies none of them.

This is a book I know I'll be rereading because I want to spend more time with Etheridge as he observes the new, but still old, world he now inhabits. I, and all readers, have a lot to learn from this title. It's exactly the sort of title that those threatened by Critical Race Theory don't want to read or have available on library shelves. History is ugly, and fighting for a just cause makes a saint of no one.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher; the opinions are my own.… (meer)