Steve Luxenberg

Steve Luxenberg knew that his mother was an only child but then there was an episode that occurred at the doctor’s office when she talked to her doctor about a sibling that was institutionalized when she was quite young. The author had never in his life heard of this sister of his mother. It wasn’t until his mother’s death that the secret came out. He started to research his mother’s family and uncovered the truth about the aunt who he never met. I thought this was quite an amazing story and thoroughly researched.… (meer)

As the subtitle of the book says, this is the story of the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson decision, the Supreme Court ruling in the 1890s that legalized the odious "separate but equal" doctrine which stood for the next half century. The first two-thirds or more of the book is a round-robin biography of some of the leading players in the case, including the writer of the Plessy opinion, the writer of the dissent in Plessy, and one of the key members of the team that brought the case. The actual case itself appears in the last quarter of the book, and there's some interesting discussion of the tactics used to provoke the test case. The disappointment really comes from the discussion of the ruling itself, which comes as something of an anti-climax, and there's not really a great deal of discussion about it. Some of this may be because Justice Brown, the author of the decision, never really commented on it, but the one disappointment I have is that the author really doesn't sink his teeth into the guts of the analysis the majority used. After the huge build-up, it comes as, as I say, an anti-climax. An interesting read, though.… (meer)