Tag: Racial tensions in the US

Authors, Book Reviews

“To Kill A Mockingbird”by Harper Lee

To start with, I owe a debt of gratitude to the late Ms Harper Lee for two things. The first is for her outstanding book, ” To Kill A Mockingbird” originally published in 1960. This has since become a classic in American literature. I am truly astonished that I had never read this before.

The second (and more meaningful for me personally) is that “Mockingbird” is the first book I have read in months! Not having posted here since March 2026 indicates reading or writing about bookshow age, lethargy, a lack of interest or other factors combined to keep me away from reading books or writing about them. And to think I always was a voracious reader all my life!!

I guess you can put it down to one’s taste, but I have always had a particular liking for books written in the first person. The story in “To Kill A Mockingbird” is spelt out by young Jean Louise “Scout” Finch , a girl growing up in the fictional town of Maycomb, Alabama. Here she lives with her father Atticus Finch ( a lawyer and a member of the state legislature) and her elder brother, Jeremy “Jem” Finch. Since her mother had passed away when she was just two, Scout has been looked after by Calpurnia, their black cook and housekeeper. Remember this book was published in 1960- before the Civil Rights laws came into being. Terms like blacks, Negroes and worse were freely used then. It’s only in more recent times that it has become politically correct to refer to them as African-Americans. You will know that Alabama was a hard core Southern state where slavery flourished. The book is set in the 1930s. Slavery had long been abolished but there was a major racial divide between the whites and the blacks in these parts of the United States.

The racial divide is brought out in the courtroom when a white girl Mayella Ewell accuses Tom Robinson, a black, of having assaulted and raped her in her house. Atticus Finch defends Robinson to the best of his ability in the court of Judge Taylor. The author weaves a gripping plot moving from the past to the present – recounted often by “Scout” Finch who describes what she sees and hears. She is an exceptionally intelligent young girl, full of questions and eager to find out answers- which are not forthcoming. The book dwells on the different perspectives of both the whites and blacks that feature in the story. The underlying racial prejudices and tensions are written about with great sensitivity. There is a certain charm about the book as events are seen through the eyes of a young girl.

Ms Lee was born and lived in Alabama herself. Much of what she writes about is based on her own experience and observations of life around her. This enabled her to write such graphic descriptions of the characters in the book, such as Calpurnia, Atticus’s sister Alexandra, Mayella Ewell, or their neighbor Miss Maudie Atkinson!

“To Kill A Mockingbird” was awarded the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961. It was made into a highly successful movie in 1962 with Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch and Mary Badham as Jean Louise Finch. It won many awards as well the following year.

I am happy that I read “To Kill A Mockingbird” while I could!! If you have not read it yet, I would urge you to read it as an example of excellent story telling.

Authors, Book Reviews

“Dark Horse” by Gen Larry O Spencer, USAF Retd

Some books are truly inspirational. That’s because the characters in them touch your heart and move you to action. I would rate “Dark Horse” by General Larry O. Spencer, USAF (Retd), as one such book. He came from fairly humble circumstances, being born in 1954 to a African-American family in a tough inner-city area called The Horseshoe in Washington DC. He enlisted in the United States Air Force at the lowest level as an airman. After 44 years of distinguished service he retired as a four-star General and the Vice Chief of the United States Air Force. He was only the ninth African-American to get four -star rank. His is an extraordinary story of grit, commitment to his profession and an ability to aim high and achieve his goals. He became and remained a top achiever despite many challenges that came his way.

General Spencer’s story is all the more remarkable because as a student he was considered a failure. The circumstances in which they lived didn’t help. His father was a US Army veteran who had an arm amputated following war wounds in the Korean War. He had to wear a prosthetic arm and was derisively called Captain Hook by the kids in the neighborhood. His mother wasn’t well-educated either having studied till the 10th grade. Theirs was a family with 6 growing children. His parents naturally faced a lot of hardship in making both ends meet, with his father working at two jobs to bring home enough to feed his family.

Larry Spencer, like most African-Americans of his background, thought the way to break away from poverty was to succeed in professional sport. He wanted to become a star football player. In 1971, he enlisted as an airman in the US Air Force as there was no assurance that he would succeed with a career in football. In the Air Force there was an opportunity for him to study and better his life. He served a stint in Taiwan and after his first spell in the USAF, he decided to re-enlist so that he could work towards becoming a graduate.

An encouraging supervisor suggested he try for Officer Training School after his graduation. He was selected and became the first person in his extended family to become a commissioned officer in 1980. Many of his family and friends were in the US Military but none of them were officers. He had broken a huge barrier.

Over the years, Spencer felt the hardships that commonly came the way of African-Americans in the 1970s and 1980s, even when he wore the uniform of the United States Air Force.

He was a committed professional, held himself and others to very high standards and worked with great passion for his profession. Perhaps because he was not a trained pilot but served in the financial management area of the USAF, his rise to higher positions saw him break more barriers.

General Spencer writes with a lot of candor on how he coped with difficult and challenging situations in his career. Needless to say, many of them were because he was an African-American.

More than the high command positions he held or his professional achievements, laudable as they may be, the book’s value lies in our understanding of General Spencer as a person. We see how he succeeded against the odds. We marvel at the way he emerged to be the dark horse in horse racing parlance. And, last but not the least, General Spencer leaves us with a crisp summary of his life lessons, which are invaluable.

Overall, an inspirational book about an officer and a gentleman.