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Never Been a Time
The 1917 Race Riot that Sparked the Civil Rights Movement
Harper Barnes

Reviews of Never Been a Time

"A sobering look at white-black history in this country and how it informs race relations today...Barnes brings fresh light to a troubling past that white Americans would prefer to forget and black Americans cannot.""—Scott Martelle, Los Angeles Times

"There is a secret history of American race relations, things they never taught us in school-the wanton terrorism visited upon African-Americans by white mobs from the end of the civil war to the beginning of the modern civil rights movement. Harper Barnes takes one of the very worst episodes-the East St. Louis race riot of 1917-and uses it to illuminate and exorcise a past that we need to confront. This is a very important book, heartbreaking and riveting, history that is as fresh as today's news."—Joe Klein, Time Magazine columnist

"You put Never Been a Time down and think, 'How can I imagine myself an educated American and not know this?' A terrifying account, by a masterful writer."—Paul Solman, economics correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

"A heartbreaking, romantic and utterly compelling piece of reportage that superbly tells the story of four generations of the author's own family across 20th Century Russia, from Tsarist aristocracy to Stalinist elite, from the torture chambers of Stalin's Terror and the honeytraps of 1960s KGB to the coke-snorting orgies of 1990s Moscow Babylon and the battlefields of Chechnya. Here is an astonishing personal history of love, death and betrayal in Russia by a half-Russian writer who really knows the texture of the Motherland."—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar and Young Stalin

"The crisp and admirably self-deprecating vignettes of his own life, both emotional and professional, give his parents� story a fitting perspective. Few books say so much about Russia then and now, and its effect on those it touches."—The Economist

"Although Americans tend to think of riots in connection with the urban turbulence of the 1960s, journalist Barnes puts them into historical perspective. He begins with an overview of the long history of rioting in America-the New York Draft Riots and riots in cities of the North and South fueled by economic and social uncertainties overlaid with race prejudice. Barnes focuses on the 1917 race riot in East St. Louis, Illinois, where social forces culminated in one of the bloodiest racial confrontations of the twentieth century. The usual tensions of industrialists luring blacks from the South to the North to serve as strikebreakers and surplus labor were exacerbated by corrupt local officials. Barnes details the national racial tensions that played out in East St. Louis, as resentment of limited opportunities for blacks met with fear and resentment by whites. The riot, and the unrest on the part of black leaders, including W. E. B. DuBois and Ida B. Wells, led to the civil rights movement."—Booklist

"St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor Barnes (Standing on a Volcano: The Life and Times of David Rowland Francis, 2001, etc.) recreates the deadliest racial melee in American history until the Rodney King riots. The author deftly sets the stage with a brief history of racial tensions in the United States. His chronicle of the riot that gripped East St. Louis, Ill., on July 2, 1917, relies heavily upon the contemporaneous research of W.E.B. Du Bois, newspaper reports and court documents. East St. Louis was a transit hub for Southern African-Americans as they began their migration to the North in the wake of the Civil War, seeking economic opportunity and social freedom. Many opted to settle in the industrial city, heightening competition for jobs that led to several racial skirmishes early that spring. Total anarchy erupted on the morning of July 2 after the murder of a policeman. Bloodthirsty white mobs stormed black neighborhoods, seeking revenge as they burned, beat and shot indiscriminately. The bloodletting left at least 48 dead with hundreds more injured, thousands displaced and more than 300 businesses and homes consumed by fire. The incident drew unprecedented national outrage: A flood of activists arrived on the scene, while thousands descended upon New York to participate in The Silent Parade, the country's first civil-rights march. Barnes's straightforward prose delivers richly textured portraits of those caught up in the fracas, most notably in the chapter entitled "A Drama of Death," which stitches together eyewitness accounts of the riots. A highly engaging subplot follows Post-Dispatch journalist Paul Y. Anderson, who landed on the battle's front lines as he struggled to compile reports throughout the day. The final chapter, though an interesting profile of the city's luminaries, seems an afterthought attempting to brighten an overwhelmingly dark period in East St. Louis's past. Authoritative account of a criminally overlooked incident in American history."—Kirkus Reviews

"Never Been a Time uncovers one of those buried chapters in our country's defining narrative of race and vividly lays out the nexus of economic desperation, corporate ruthlessness and racial antagonism that resulted in what Gunnar Myrdal called this 'mass lynching' in the American heartland. Harper Barnes is a natural reporter and an extremely elegant writer."—Diane McWhorter, author of Carry Me Home and A Dream of Freedom

"America's worst race riots are pivotal moments in the nation's history with a great deal to teach us. Barnes skillfully places this shocking and important story in its full historical context and conveys a powerful sense of place: the dangerous streets and vice dens of East St. Louis, the foul winds from the smokestacks and slaughterhouses, and the city's toxic stew of greed, corruption, labor competition, and racism. Never Been a Time vividly recounts a horrifying massacre, but it is also a testament to human resilience, a celebration of a city that against all odds has produced so many famous cultural figures and drawn them back home to fight for its survival and its children's future."—Barnet Schecter, author of The Devil's Own Work

"Harper Barnes has written a brilliant account of a tragic event in the American experience. He places the bloody East St. Louis Race Riot in its national historical context-demonstrating that it was more than an explosion of local pressures, but also a violent intersection of larger societal forces. He does a fine job synthesizing existing scholarly literature and the latest academic analyses alongside his own primary work. This well-researched and cogently-written book makes a meaningful contribution to the understanding of the infamous 1917 riot as well as race relations generally, and deserves the attention of scholars and citizens alike."—Andrew J. Theising, Ph.D., director of the Institute for Urban Research, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, and author of Made in USA: East St. Louis

About Harper Barnes