Book Review: Down Along with That Devil's Bones by Connor Towne O'Neill *****

Down Along with That Devil's Bones: A Reckoning with Monuments, Memory, and the Legacy of White Supremacy by Connor Towne O'Neill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Framed around O'Neill's travels through the South from the time leading up to and following the 2016 election through 2018, this examination of the controversy over Confederate monuments and the legacy of white supremacy focuses on one personage: general, slave trader, and first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan Nathan Bedford Forrest, who also commanded the Confederate troops who perpetrated the Fort Pillow massacre in 1864. Although only 250 pages long, it also includes a lot of much-needed context and history for the 150-year span between the Civil War and today.

While it's clear where O'Neill's sympathies lie, he engages people on both sides of the issue with respect, as well as acknowledging the benefits that white Northerners such as himself have received from the inequalities embedded in the system since before the Revolution. His refrain of "it's us" (sorry, English purists - it definitely has more "punch" than "it's we") is a sadly-needed corrective to the upbeat message we hear so much these days that "this is not who we are." He also attempts to understand the personality and motivations of Forrest himself (and his admirers) rather than painting them as caricatures of racism and evil.

His journey takes him to places such as Selma, AL; a monumental (and ugly, in many people's view) statue of Forrest on private land facing Interstate 65 that was created by segregationist Jack Kershaw; and Memphis, among other places, and ends at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, AL, where he ponders whether the arc of the universe, as Dr. King said, truly bends towards justice.

I see some criticism of this book in other reviews for being centered on the author's perspective as a white Northerner, but while no doubt there are many valuable and meaningful books that could be written on the subject by others, this is the one that this author chose to write, or that chose him to write it, and I found it powerful and enlightening.

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