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New York Times featured history author to speak at Storrs

Date: 2/26/2015

LONGMEADOW – Jason Sokol, a history author who was recently featured in the New York Times, will be speaking at Storrs Library on March 7 at 2 p.m. about his newest book “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn.”

Sokol told Reminder Publications his book can be described as a history of a war between two metaphorical souls of Northeast – one that advocates freedom and another that creates patterns of segregation and racism.

“The idea is that the North has two traditions when it comes to race,” he added. “On the one hand, people who live, especially in the Northeast – Massachusetts [and] New York  – we often think that we have this heritage of freedom with the abolitionists. You know, we fought on the noble side of the Civil War. Even up to the Civil Rights movement a lot of white northerners volunteered and went south to go to Mississippi and Alabama to march and protest.”

On the other hand, there is a “vicious history of racism and racial violence” that has historically permeated throughout the Northeast, Sokol said.

“Two of the chapters of the book are on Springfield,” he added. “I will definitely be giving the audience a taste of the chapters. One of the chapters is about something called the Springfield plan, which was devised during World War II and this was a plan where city leaders claimed that they would abolish racial prejudice from the city of Springfield.

“It was a plan that concentrated on the public schools and they designed this curriculum to teach multiculturalism and teach African American history and to teach tolerance,” he continued.  

The second chapter that focuses on Springfield is about school segregation during the 1960s, Sokol, who was born in the city and grew up in Longmeadow, noted.

“A group of black parents filed a lawsuit against the city basically charging that the schools were segregated and the [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] took up the lawsuit [and] represented the black parents,” he added.  “It was an important moment in the fight against Northern segregation.”

Two chapters also tell the history of U.S Sen. Edward William Brooke III from Massachusetts who became the first African-American popularly elected to the United States Senate.

“The story of Ed Brooke is one that some people don’t know,” he added. “So, a lot of people in Massachusetts haven’t even heard of him, but I think that’s a really significant fascinating story and it’s one that I at least always try to [share with] the audience.”

Typically, Sokol reads small selections from various chapters of his book and answers questions from audience members. The book chronicles the history of Northeastern race relations and politics from 1939 to the present.

“If they want to talk about the present state that’s fine,” he added. “Usually I try to focus on my specialty, which is the history of it and it’s fine if people are interested in connecting it to current events.”

The last few chapters of the book focus on former Gov. Deval Patrick and President Barack Obama, Sokol noted.

“It’s about this rise of a new generation of African American politicians,” he added. “It’s a general hopeful story, although the book is a constant story of conflict because the very night that Barack Obama was first elected a black church was also burned down in Springfield. So, there’s always the two sides is what I argue.”

 Sokol, an assistant professor of history at the College of Liberal Arts at the University of New Hampshire, said his book was published shortly after the verdict came back in the death of Eric Garner case.

“[The book] was relevant in a sad way,” he added.

Sokol is also the author of “There Goes My Everything: White Southerners in the Age of Civil Rights, 1945-1974,” which was named one of the top 10 books of 2006 by Jonathan Yardley of Washington Post Book World and was featured on National Public Radio’s Fresh Air on Dec. 1, 2014.

For more information about Sokol visit www.jasonsokol.com/index.html