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Jan 08, 2009

Tim rated it:

Tyson's opus is intelligently written and meticulously researched and looks at all characters in a sympathetic light, no matter how evil they appear to be on the surface. Tyson's biggest weakness in his book is his ambivalence of his own identity. He begins the book as an individual proud of his strong father and southern roots as they appear to be a dominant force in who he is today...however he oscillates between pat-on-the-back good-ole southern boy and self loathing southerner, wishing to en More...

4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Jay rated it:

I read this wonderful book my first year at Sarah Lawrence in my "Introduction to African American History" seminar. This book is an intricate mix of memoir and historical non-fiction. Tim Tyson tells the story of the events surrounding the murder of a young black man in his hometown in Oxford, NC. What makes this book special from civil rights narratives is that it powerfully, yet humbly, attempts to explain the local politics of the Civil Rights Movement. Too often, we think of th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 20, 2008

Bmeyer rated it:

If there were ten stars, I'd give them...one of the best books I have read about anything, pretty much. Beautifully written and will rewire your understanding of race in the American South and adds needed perspective (especially for white people) about the modern Civil Rights movement. You won't want to put it down.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2009

Judy rated it:

This is the third time that I've read this book and each time I come away with a new understanding. Everyone who lived through the civil rights period in America, or who has studied that period needs to read this book. Especially people, like myself, who live in southern Virginia or northern North Carolina because the book is rooted in that soil. Timothy Tyson is a professor of Afro-American Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He is also white. When he was ten years old, he w More...

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Jul 07, 2011

Carl added it

It's always a shock to be reminded how recently the ugly racist past of America roamed unfettered over much of our landscape -- Tyson's memoir makes it clear that it still might not be entirely domesticated, although the progress is worth noting. This book does a great job of telling the horrifying history of a murder and a whole series of miscarriages of justice in eastern North Carolina, centered on 1970 but extending back to 1898 and forward into the 1990s.

Tyson's narration occasi More...

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Jul 04, 2011

Nancy rated it:

Nevada County is our chosen home, but we previously lived for almost a decade in North Carolina near where the events in this book took place more than 30 years ago. We feel it is an important book in illustrating racial attitudes that were present, and still are in the south today.

Being native Californians, we didn't really realize these subtle attitudes fully until we lived and experienced them ourselves. This book written by a native North Carolinian Timothy Tyson, is well worth rea More...

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Aug 14, 2010

Kate rated it:

This book is a perfect balance between a memoir of someone who grew up during a period of serious racial turmoil in North Carolina, and a history of/commentary on that racial turmoil. The author tells this obviously complicated story with one murder as the focal point, which centers everything really nicely. (p.s. The murder in question took place in 1970! I mean seriously, 1970?!) Tyson is white, and belonged to a family of Methodist preachers who historically worked against racial oppression. More...

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Jul 25, 2010

Jennifer added it

This is Tyson's personal account of a story that took place in Oxford, North Carolina, in 1970. A young black man was murdered in public in broad daylight by three white men, who were not only not arrested until days later, but were eventually acquitted of murder charges. The story Tyson tells is of race relations in his life, his town, the South, and also how the eyes of the world on the state of race relations within the United States affected Federal legislation and involvement on local leve More...

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Jul 10, 2010

Susan rated it:

Not a typical beach read - but it had been languishing in my 'to read' pile for too long after Mom loaned it to me. So sitting on the lanai in Hawaii, I was transported back to 1970s eastern North Carolina. You're probably thinking about the outer banks and how much we loved driving down, stopping to get tomatoes, corn, peaches and BBQ on our way through. At that same time horrible acts of racism were still taking their toll on communities, even resulting in senseless murder. I'm certain simil More...

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Apr 02, 2010

Becca rated it:

I gave it three stars because this book was not what I expected from the title and descriptions on the cover. I thought it was going to be the story of this one incident, but instead it was a widespread and thorough analysis of race relations and inequality at the time, with the story thrown in near the end. In fact, by the time he finally got around to telling the story, I ended up running out of time and returning the library book unfinished. I did want to know how it ended, but just was ti More...

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Feb 17, 2010

Paul rated it:

Author Timothy B. Tyson has carved out a rather unique role for himself. Believe it or not, he is a white man from North Carolina teaching Black History in Wisconsin. "Blood Done Sign My Name" is the compelling, personal and brutally honest story of how this all came to be.
Tyson was 10 years old back in 1970 and living with his family in the small rural town of Oxford, N.C. His dad was the Methodist minister and his mom a schoolteacher in town. One day in May, his 10 year old pl More...

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Jan 02, 2010

Kirsti rated it:

Wow. Simultaneously personal (because it's a memoir of a horrible event in Oxford, North Carolina, in 1970) and universal (because it's about prejudice and fear and ignorance and hope). Also, I laughed aloud several times.

I read this book on various planes and buses and in various terminals and lounges last month, most of the time with tears running down my face. Which was embarrassing but maybe was good advertising for this author.

Not only is this a memoir and a history More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 27, 2009

Anya rated it:

This is the best nonfiction book about civil rights I have ever read. I'm astounded that it isn't required reading in high schools and colleges across America. It's the story of a murder in North Carolina in 1970; it's also the story of author Tim Tyson's family, and of the history of race in the American South.

I thought I knew all this stuff. The Civil Rights Movement gets pounded into most American kids' heads around junior high, depicted as a thrilling time when the country came t More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 16, 2009

Bea rated it:

This is a very powerful, disturbing book. It is about a racist murder that took place in North Carolina in 1970. It also includes lots of facts and background on everything related to this case, which made it bog down a little for me. I still found it extremely interesting and was a little amazed that this all happened not so long ago.

I received an e-mail from someone who gave me a web site that says that the book is totally fiction and the author needs to be investigated. I found More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Elaine rated it:

This is a memoir about coming of age in the mid 20th century South. It is unusual because it's written by a man whose family roots extend deep into America's history, so he is both proud of his ancestry and appalled by it. This split self-view is not uncommon amongst Southerners from "old" families, those who deplored Southern racism, that is.

Tyson writes with warmth and compassion, making us feel what he did: the awfulness of the murder of a Black man one bright day, and More...

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Jul 05, 2010

Pamela rated it:

This is a very powerful and well written book that I am grateful to have read. This book really hit home for me due to the fact that I was born just a few years after the main event of this book and the fact that it took place in a small town in North Carolina. I grew up in a small town in North Carolina in which racism definitely still existed; however, I went to public school which was fully integrated. This book opened my eyes to the Civil Rights Movement and to the rampant racism and segr More...

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Dec 18, 2007

Stuart rated it:

Part memoir and part history lesson this book looks at race relations in a small North Carolina town through the eyes of Timothy Tyson a white preachers son. He writes about the murder of a black man and the rage in the African American community that came with the aquital of the white men on trial for that murder. In a way, this book and The Tortilla Curtain try to get us to look at how we see people outside of our race, their struggles and our presuppositions.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 30, 2011

Bikewriter rated it:

I picked up this volume on recommendation of a written review, but possibly would have chosen it based on its title alone and the fact that it is presented as a true story. Tyson skillfully wrote the story of racial strife in 60s North Carolina and urges that it is the larger story of racial strife in our nation, both at the time and stemming from two centuries of overt slavery and marginalization of African Americans even after the ending of slavery. His story rotates around the 1970 cold-blood More...

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Jan 01, 2012

Frederick rated it:

This book was part of the One Book One Community program.The story of the small town of Oxford, NC. In 1970, a black man named Dickie Murrow walked into a white man's store. He supposedly said something inappropriate to a woman behind the counter. The store owner, a man, named Robert Teel, and a couple of his buddies chased Murrow with a shotgun. They caught up with him by the road, pushed him down, beat him with the gun and then killed him. The justice system in the county was unable to convic More...

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Jul 05, 2010

John rated it:

This is a great book, and a real eye-opener to what the civil rights era was really like, at a local level. The main point Tyson is trying to make here is that we all collectively think of the civil rights movement as a simple process: things were bad for black people, Martin Luther King and others led marches and boycotts, he gave the 'Dream' speech, they passed the Civil Rights Act, done deal. But in Tyson's hometown, as in many many towns all across the south (and the country), nothing really More...

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Apr 12, 2009

Eric_W rated it:

Really good memoir. I'll add more later, but in the meantime, here's a interesting piece of information:

In 1662, the Virginia legislature passed a law that read, "Children got by an Englishman upon a Negro woman shall be bond or free according to the condition of the mother." Seems otherwise innocuous, but this statute reversed English common law under which the status of the child frollowed that of the father.

The implications were huge. It meant that slave own More...

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Jan 03, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

This book haunts me. Being that I was not raised in North Carolina and have only lived hear for a few years, this book was difficult for me to read because it was so disturbing. It showed me what evil looks like, and I didn't like that image. It is a story about the racism of this area during the Civil Rights movement. Needless to say, I learned a great deal about the historical events of that time. The story took me to UNC, Duke, and other local areas, and allowed me to experience the ange More...

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Dec 28, 2009

Ny rated it:

One of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time. Compelling and reads like fiction--but better. The author does a great job of balancing the first-person perspective of his memories of the incident that he investigates in the book--(The 'in cold blood' beating and shooting of an unarmed black man by a group of white men in the middle of a crowded street, the farce of a trial and eventual acquittal of all of the men involved by an all-white jury, and the author's progressive preacher b More...

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Jul 29, 2010

Tobey rated it:

I apologize in advance if this becomes something other than a book review.

I live about two hours away from Oxford, North Carolina where fourty years ago Henry Marrow was beaten and murdered in the street for no reason other than the fact that he was black man who talked to a white woman. So it is a bit of an understatement to say that this book hit close to home.

Tim Tyson and I grew up in small southern tobacco towns, where friendly folk sitting on their front porches wou More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Suzanne rated it:

I love books like this - instead of trying to tackle the entire Civil Rights movement, it provided in-depth coverage from the perspective of one small town in North Carolina, where a single event spoke volumes about race relations in the "new South." It gave me a rare insight into the not-so-distant past of the area I now call home.

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2011

Chuck rated it:

"Blood Done Sign My Name" is a true story that recounts the racial strife and tension that Timothy Tyson experienced it in Oxford, North Carolina in 1970. Having grown up in the local Methodist parsonage, Tyson witnessed his father and the church deal with racial issues in ways that were inspiring as well as disappointing.

Not only is this a well written book but the fact that the events in this book took place a mere 40 years ago is a good reminder that we have a long way to More...

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Mar 10, 2010

Laura rated it:

Wow, this is one of the best works of history I've ever read! It's nominally about a murder in Oxford, NC in 1970, but really it's about the history of race relations in the U.S. from slavery to the present. Tyson mixes his personal story and stories about his family with archival research and large numbers of interviews to produce a compelling narrative. I studied history in college and graduate school, but I still learned a lot about the Civil Rights movement from this book that I didn't know More...

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Nov 27, 2010

Jeff rated it:

I was pretty surprised how disappointed I was with this book. It came to me very highly recommended, and it contains all of the tropes I typically fall (hard) for, in setting, style and substance. But as I slogged through it--and it was a slog--I was continually frustrated by how much the author was trying to do. He was taking one compelling, horrific incident and using it as a framework for telling the entire racial history of the South from 1865 to the present. An admirable goal, but I kept th More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 28, 2011

Lisa rated it:

We were taught, predominantly via Black History Month lessons, that the civil rights movement was a neat, compact, non-violent time with a relatively happy ending. Tyson's memoir examines the nuances of a very messy black freedom struggle in a way I've never before experienced. Sometimes history is made more digestible than its reality; Tyson does the reverse. 'Blood' is a very raw and genuine meditation on race without which any civil rights discussion or collection of southern history would More...

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Jul 27, 2009

Tracy rated it:

This was an excellent book. I gave it 3 stars rather than 4 because at times I felt it was torn between being an account of an event and an account of one person's reaction to it. I understand that was the author's point, but as a reader I felt a bit of flow was lost because of that tension. I would have liked to have heard more about the procedural evolution of the trial. However, the book was excellent in the sense that I learned things I never knew about race history in the US. His discuss More...

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