Blood Done Sign My Name : A True Story by Timothy B. Tyson (2005, Paperback)
Product Details
Overview “Daddy and Roger and ’em shot ’em a nigger.†Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by a playmate, heralded a firestorm that would forever transform the tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina. On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a twenty-three-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life. Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses. Tyson’s father, the pastor of Oxford’s all-white Methodist church, urged the town to come to terms with its bloody racial history. In the end, however, the Tyson family was forced to move away. Tim Tyson’s riveting narrative of that fiery summer brings gritty blues truth, soaring gospel vision, and down-home humor to a shocking episode of our history. Like To Kill a Mockingbird, Blood Done Sign My Name is a classic portrait of an unforgettable time and place.
Specifications
- ISBN-13: 9781400083114
- Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
- Publication date: 5/3/2005
- Edition description: Reprint
- Pages: 368
- Sales rank: 258,287
- Lexile: 1240L (what's this?)
- Product dimensions: 5.16 (w) x 7.97 (h) x 0.80 (d)
Reviews (11)
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5.0 / 5.0
the last review was given by one of the aquitted members of that family...read the book for yourself.
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5.0 / 5.0
This author put his soul to work when he honestly critiqued everyone involved in his story. There is no wonder he speaks with such authenticity as a storyteller. Confronting your own reality--all of it-- will help you find a more approximate truth. I actually laughed out loud in many places. A lot of emotions are invoked from the disclosure of loss, hate, pain, embarrassment, pride, and acceptance. The author is a folk art storyteller, and a scholar. The book title is an excellent expression of what the author seems to reveal about his relationship with the divine and reconciliation.
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5.0 / 5.0
With this devastating story Tyson gives us a hard, cold, honest look at hatred, prejudice and racism in North Carolina in the sixties and seventies. I know. I was there.
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5.0 / 5.0
By chance I came across a review of Tyson's book in Entertainment Weekly, where it was highly praised. Simply put, this is one of the finest books I've read on the country's struggle with the legacy of slavery and white supremacy. Tyson is unflinchingly honest about his own life, his family's past, and the past of his native North Carolina. Rather than dancing around the painful facts of race relations in the U.S., he confronts them head on. The book is, thankfully, not preachy or sanctimonious, as Tyson examines his own personal complicity in the system of white domination. As a result, the book does what good literature always does - helps the reader examine his or her own unquestioned assumptions and prejudices. Tyson also offers, in his own modest way, some reflections on how we might find our way out of the mess that slavery and white supremacy have created in the U.S. And I don't want to make the book sound dull and dry. Though the subject is grim, Tyson writes his story in a compelling and highly readable manner. Highly recommended!
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1.0 / 5.0
This is a painful story to read. Having grown up years after the events describe in this book in the same town and growing up friends with memebers of both families, it is shocking. As a child I had never heard of this event, just 15 years afterward it was rarely discussed. I had close friends in both the Teel and Marrow families. Reading this was challenging. While the book provides great insight and review of events, it still causes pain. The younger Teel's being critized and threatened for their older generations actions. It brings back to the surface pain, fear and the reality that racisim last today. The younger Teel are fearful to say their name because they will be harrashed, barated, or beaten for actions they themselves did not do. While a insightful book, it is a book that has caused more pain and suffering than it was really worth.
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4.0 / 5.0
I had to read this book for a college course, but while reading it, I was able to meet the author. After listening to commentary from the author, I realized how important this book was to history. Dr. Tyson used a lot of historical facts to incoporate into his personal story. Especially if you are NC or the south, it is a must-read! It is definitely thought-provoking to think how different the world is today.
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5.0 / 5.0
I really enjoy this book it took me to everyplace that was decribe in the stroy of the book, I like the fact author told the truth. How his feelings were as a child with unearned white privileged had, oppose to the African Americans in this country in this country and he wrote this true story. I like the fact I found out that African Americans did not just burn their own side of towns down. It was a lot of history in this book also,ENJOYED.
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5.0 / 5.0
What an amazing book! Growing up a white farm girl in NC, I remember. Tyson does a great job of conveying his personal story. A page turner for me!!
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5.0 / 5.0
Tyson relentlessly pursues a more complex understanding of race relations through the history that recreates them, from slavery to the civil rights movement to the interpersonal relationships among friends. Through 'a true story' that emerges from historical documents, stories gathered from many people involved, and personal memories Tyson reveals the possibilities still to be experienced across racial divides. His writing makes the reader feel as if in the presence of an accomplished storyteller. The Mentor Award honors an author who inpsires others to 'live the dream,' which in in this case is entirely deserved. 'My search for the meaning of the troubles in Oxford launched me toward a life of learning, across the lines of color and caste, out of my little boy's vision of my family's well-lighted place in the world and into the shadows where histories and memories and hopes abide.'
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1.0 / 5.0
I grew up in Oxford and have lived here all my life. I remember the incident that inspired this work of fiction. I know the people involved and the true story. While this book may be an interesting read, it is not fact. If you want the truth go to timothybtyson.com. Or tim tyson exposed.
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5.0 / 5.0
It is interesting how you never mentioned how the victim's family and all the other victimized blacks felt then and how the feel NOW! You only mention concerns for the family members that did the horrible killing!