The agitator's daughter : a memoir of four generations of one extraordinary African American family / Sheryll Cashin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Cashin, Sheryll.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cashin family.

National Democratic Party of Alabama.

African Americans--Alabama--Biography.

African Americans.

African Americans--Alabama--Politics and government.

African Americans--Civil rights--Alabama--History.

Cashin, John L. (John Logan), 1928-2011.

Cashin, John L.

National Democratic Party of Alabama--History.

Social conditions.

History.

African Americans--Civil rights.

Politics and government.

Alabama--Politics and government--1865-1950.

Alabama.

Alabama--Politics and government--1950-.

African Americans--Alabama--Social conditions--19th century.

African Americans--Alabama--Social conditions--20th century.

Cashin, Sheryll.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

vii, 268 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : PublicAffairs, [2008]

Summary:

The Agitator's Daughter is Sheryll Cashin's memoir of her "emotional inheritance," the dedication to political activism that has coursed through her family for generations. During Reconstruction, Herschel V. Cashin was a radical republican legislator who championed black political enfranchisement throughout the South. His grandson, Dr. John L. Cashin, Jr., inherited that passion for social justice and founded an independent Democratic party to counter George Wallace's Dixiecrats, electing more blacks to office than in any Southern state. His "uppity" ways attracted many enemies. The IRS pursued him, as did the FBI. Ultimately, his passions would lead to ruin and leave his daughter, Sheryll, wondering why he would risk so much.

The Cashin family diaspora reaches throughout the U.S.-to Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, and beyond. Through four generations, they confront the fact of Herschel being the child of a white, slave-owning Irish-American and his decision to ally himself with black people. One family member chooses to pass for white. Others, especially Sheryll's father and his brother, develop a sense of obligation to "finish Grandpa Herschel's work." The process of political emancipation, begun by Herschel, eroded by Jim Crow, and revived in the era of Civil Rights is the lifeblood of the Cashin family. It is a complicated, often troublesome inheritance, one that Sheryll herself comes gradually to embrace and understand as she acknowledges being an agitator's daughter, with humor, honesty, and love.

Contents:

My inheritance

The lore

Miscegenation

Philadelphia

Reconstruction

Uplift the race

The talented tenth

Man-child

Manhood

Civil rights

Integration

The National Democratic Party of Alabama

Altruism

Reversal

Independence.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-266).

ISBN:

9781586484224

1586484222

OCLC:

213383794