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10.07.04 Kennedy, James Ronald, and Walter Donald Kennedy, Punished with Poverty: The Suffering South — Prosperity to Poverty and the Continuing Struggle, published in 2016

Our Review:

This is an interesting and highly original history of the Southern people, told from the viewpoint of the great theme of Poverty.  Before the War between the States, the South was undoubtedly the most productive and prosperous part of the United States, even though it carried nearly all the Federal tax burden.  But since that time and up to the present, Southerners, black ad white, have been the poorest of Americans, sharing only marginally in vaunted national prosperity.  The authors demonstrate how the destruction and looting of war, the corruption of Reconstruction, and the continuing exploitation of the South since have resulted in second-class citizenship for Southerners.  Poverty is indeed a main theme of Southern history, and one that has seldom been expounded so fully and clearly.

CNW