Well, I need to revise all this manuscript but I have finally completed a first full draft: ONE OKIE'S RACIAL RECKONINGS

 

Ken Burns on "Reckoning with A History Fraught with Violence and Injustice" and the Table of Contents of "An Okie's Racial Reckonings" I

in the Washington Post 22 November 2021 Ken Burns says: "Being an American means reckoning with a history fraught with violence and injustice. Ignoring that reality in favor of mythology is not only wrong but also dangerous. The dark chapters of American history have just as much to teach us, if not more, than the glorious ones, and often the two are intertwined.”

 

What I have been doing in 2021 and 2022 is just what Burns says, reckoning with Americant history. Here is the table of contents of a book.  Everything needs revision, but all the chapters are completed.  All the chapters are about kinfolks of mine in the colonies or in the United States.

 

                                   AN  OKIE’S RACIAL RECKONINGS

 #01 “GODDAMN OKIES”--How Grapes of Wrath defined Oklahomans

#02 WHO THE OKIES WERE--(Eastern white and red Oklahomans who had been there in Choctaw and Cherokee Territories)

#03 FAMILY STORIES--BEFORE I SAW I HAD TO write A RACE BOOK--good happy oblivious stories

#04 COUSINS AT WAR ON THE CHEROKEES --What the Carolinians were doing after thr first instead of going off to fight the British

#05 JEFFERSON, COCKE, SIMS (The burning of the Sims Settlement 2 times. TJ as one of the cousins, an inconsistent one)

#06 RACIAL OBLIVIOUSNESS AT TRAP HILL (the Siamese Twins in NC--and 2 NC men who held Union meetings in 1863)

#07 Brigham Young’s Utah: Polygamy, Murders, and Massacres--and Blaming the Indians  (Many of my family were murdered)

#08 Slaughtering for Parley, Brigham, and Jesus, But Saving Some Babies for Ransom

#09 JESSE SPARKS--Falsely ACCUSED OF ATROCITY TO  BLACKS WHO  LIVED TO BEFRIEND INDIANS AND BLACKS--NEVER KNOWING OF THE ACCUSATION.  HE AND MILTON (SEE #10) ARE COUSINS OF MINE BUT NOT OF EACH OTHER

#10  MILTON SIMS--“SENTENCED TO BE HANGED” --THE GREATEST ADVENTURER; I MERELY MENTION HIS LIVING TO KISS THE GLOVE OF THE EMPRESS CARLOTA.

#11  FLETCHER HILL & FRATERNITY (1864 escape from Rebel Prison and journey to Union lines with help from Blacks and Red Stringers)

#12 CAPT. MATTHEWS--LIAR & MURDERER 1866 (Freedmen's Bureau lies are history now, still repeated)

#13 TOURGEE vs  MCGEHEE--KKK 1860s & 1870s (details about KKK and end of Reconstruction)

#14 WILLY SIMS & THE DANVILLE “MASSACRE" or "STREET-FIGHT” (a reckless cousin who all by himself (some said) may have ended Reconstruction in Virginia)

#15 GLENN-TUCKER JARNDYCE vs JARNDYCE OF I. T. (My family fight against Choctaw corruption--story ending with 3 judges who ruled against us--one died in alcoholic binge, another slit his throat (but lived), and third had a leg cut off and died.)

#16 DICK COSTNER’S GALLANTRY AT WOUNDED KNEE (provocative--Sen. Warren is right to want to rescind medals--but Dick really was gallant and deserves to keep his medal.)

#17 LEE SPARKS--ONE BAD COP (Houston white thug who doomed the Buffalo Soldiers in 1917)

#18 DOVEY--BLACK COSTNERS (horrific  story of black family driven from place to place) [MY MOTHER WAS MARTHA COSTNER.]

         Appendix--RACIAL DOCUMENTS (grim items about kinfolks--disposition of slaves in wills, ads for runaways, auction ads for slaves &c)