Polite Protest: The Political Economy of Race in Indianapolis, 1920–1970 by Richard B. Pierce (review)

tographs do shine through. Grassbopper Pilot is a quick and easy read that does manage to convey some of the lura of light aviation (" real flying" in the award was signed by then Lieutenant General George S. Patton,Jr.). Later in the war,he became involved in technical modifications of the L4 , including rockets and television gear. Designated by thenGeneral of the Army Douglas MacArthur to play a key role in the opening phase of the invasion of Japan, Cummings was training for that mission when the war ended. Despite often interesting anecdotes and textures, Grassbopper Pilot is at once too brief, rambling , and uneven in style, and : r occasion ally lunges into purple ' prose ( 35, 5657 ). Rather than 1 being the memoir that the title flo indicates,the book falls closer to A·-. : "" '' a chatty reminiscence or recollection . Explanations of technical t matters, definitions, and historical stagesetting are rare, sketchy, and sometimes puzzling ( for example, the blurry treatment of the Battle of Kasserine Pass in which Eisenhower is described as the battle commander,and a coda on military light aviation in the postWorld War II period that makes no mention of the L19 , among other things) ( 8485 ). The evolution of military light aviation from World War I to U.S. involvement I in World War II is only limned, and the grandest deployment of light aircraft during World War II, the First Air Commandos as well as Army Air Force chief Henry H. " Hap"Arnold's special interest in them,also goes unmentioned. Beyond the scarcity of maps and illustrations, and the simplicity of those included, references are sparse. Only seven footnotes appear,an occasional intext mention of articles on the development of army aviation,and there is no bibliography. Beyond such flaws and shortfalls, particularly perplexing in a book bearing the seal of a university press, some facets of Cummings as the modern Icarus and hotshot flyboy depicted in several phothe lexicon of aerial folk culture, as the reviewer can verify from limited experience). This book might welllead someone in search of a topic in airpower history to pursue a broader study of light planes in combat, one of many aspects of military aviation that deserves better treatment than it has so far received. Roger Beaumont Texas AOM University, Emeritits Richard B. Pierce. Polite Protest: Tbe Political Economy of Race in Indianapolis , 19201970 . Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005. 168 pp. ISBN: 0253345871 ( cloth), $ 39.95. n this small but interesting study of the African American community in Indianapolis,the author advances several arguments that he believes makes it unique from other black urban communities ,especially in the North. " The African American community developed differently in Indianapolis than it did in places further north," he claims. Instead of receiving the bulk of its population during the World War eras, Indianapolis already contained a sizable African American population throughout the twentieth century" ( 3). As a result, blacks " were not an addendum to the citybuilding process;rather,they were an integral component of the city's political economy ( 3). Black and white citizens in Indianapolis had a long tradition of " faceto face dialogue and lengthy SPRING 2006 79 BOOK REVIEWS committee deliberation to confront the city's racial challenges" ( 2). Yet the author details the countless efforts the AfricanAmerican community undertook to achieve equality in education, housing,and employment ,only to be denied by whites determined to cans in Indianapolis well into the 1960s. All the while,AfricanAmerican leaders struggled with the question of what type of protest was most effective without losing " previously won gains. They had to be flexible in order to adapt to the many challenges protect the racial status quo. The -,„-= . systemic racism that they placed 1" fb i. I their hopes on the shoulders of 2 % 1' 111* young, AfricanAmerican basketball players during the 1951 highschool basketball tournament . While this brought some * 25 » „ r gainwhites began accepting , F#-"the black basketball players as i the city team instead of a black high school teamthe overall ' racial situation did not change. , The white power structure' s fight 4..... -, against school desegregation was k .,111» chard B.Pl« crce fierce and rarely matched by any ) 2'-, 2 4...