| Details | | Publication Date: | 1997-08-01 |
| Size | | Length: | 290 pages | | Height: | 11.0 in | | Width: | 8.5 in | | Thickness: | 0.2 in | | Weight: | 9.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
When the black youngster Gavin Cato was struck and killed by the limousine escorting the local hasidic chief rabbi, and when shortly afterwards an Australian rabbinical student was murdered, the community in which these incidents occured, "Crown Heights" (part of Brooklyn, New York), became synonomous with Black-Jewish tensions, and achieved dubious international name recognition as an ostensible ethnic battleground. Reverend Daughtry, long-time citizen of Brooklyn, and minister of The House of the Lord Pentecostal Church in a nearby neighborhood, characteristically became involved in the ensuing turmoil and media frenzy. The Crown Heights story was covered and predictably distorted by local and more widespread news organizations. Within the glaring spotlight of that coverage, Daughtry was frequently quoted, often inaccurately. Commonly, despite his denials and long experience seeking justice for all oppressed peoples, Daughtry was tarred with the ugly brush of anti-semitism. This book is his attempt to set the record straight, to tell the true story of Crown Heights, and to relate it to similar stresses throughout the country, to respond to vicious charges leveled at him, and to interpret and clarify -- which he was rendered unable to do effectively at the time -- the ongoing relationship between two of New York's most sizeable and outspoken ethnic groups. Blacks and Jews live in physically close but, admittedly, often uneasy proximity in Crown Heights and elsewhere. Neither group has, nor does any group desire, a monopoly on victimization but both have invoked historical and contemporary suffering in the ongoing battle that is New York (and, increasingly, national)politics. This is a critical subject, and Reverend Daughtry is uniquely positioned to address it.
Industry Reviews
Reading this book is like being present at another family's quarrel. Charges are made, tempers are high, and resolution seems impossible. The author, the pastor of Brooklyn's House of the Lord Pentecostal Church and cofounder of the New York Ebonics Movement, enumerates the past wrongs and questionable motives of the Crown Heights Hasidic community and former Mayor Ed Koch. While delineating the history of misunderstandings and confrontation between African Americans and Jews in Crown Heights, especially during the Brooklyn neighborhood's tragic events of 1991, Daughtry fumes over each perceived slight and quotes extensively from his personal papers and letters covering his four decades as pastor. Readers who want a more balanced account of the historical conflict in Crown Heights will have to wait. Not recommended. Nora Harris, Marin Cty. Free Lib., San Rafael, Cal.
Moore
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