Short Story Book Club

Oreo
Creative Commons License photo credit: mcclave

I’m really excited about the interest in starting a short story book club!  Thank You!

If you missed the link to the first story, here it is:  Say Yes by Tobias Wolff

I will post the first discussion question July 1st, but feel free to weigh in any time throughout the month of July!

Two quick thoughts — First, any ideas for what to name the club?  I love “Lit Bits” but I think one of the Gather writers might already use it.  I’m sure I’ve seen it used somewhere in the blogosphere…  How about “Short Takes” ?  I’m feeling a little uncreative, I’m afraid…  Any other ideas?

Also, Anna passed along this anniversary last week, via Girl Friday:

via Girl Friday by Alexis on 6/13/08

Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967), was a landmark civil rights case in which the United States Supreme Court declared Virginia’s anti-miscegenation statute, the “Racial Integrity Act of 1924″, unconstitutional, thereby overturning Pace v. Alabama (1883) and ending all race-based legal restrictions on marriage in the United States.

Today marks 41 years that whites and non-whites have been able to legally marry each other in this country.  Plaintiffs Richard (white) and Mildred (black) Loving faced a prison sentence for residing in Virginia, wedding in D.C., then returning to Virginia as a mixed race married couple.  The ACLU and several churches stood up behind the Lovings as they fought and won a monumental case that ended Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act and eventually legalized mixed race marriages in all of the United States. 

The Supreme Court ruled that “marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man,’ fundamental to our very existence and survival… To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law.”

Richard Loving died in a car accident in 1975 and Mildred Loving died of pneumonia just last month.

LovingDay.org

Once you’ve read Say Yes, you’ll see the connection…

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1 Comment(s)

  1. Excellent, I’m off to read it now.

    It’s quite scary that is was only made legal 41 years ago, that doesn’t seem like the past.

    Alix | Jun 17, 2008 | Reply

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  1. Jun 30, 2008: from Book Sense Picks: June | BOOK CLUB CLASSICS!

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