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WORK TITLE: Tigers in the Tempest
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Macomb
STATE: IL
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/f-erik-brooks-ph-d-4b411819 * http://www.wiu.edu/cas/african_american_studies/aas_core_faculty/brooks.php * https://www.amazon.com/F.-Erik-Brooks/e/B001JS3JP0
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Male.
EDUCATION:Troy State University, B.Sc., M.Sc.; Auburn University Montgomery, M.P.A.; Alabama State University, M.Ed.; Virginia Commonwealth, Ph.D.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Western Illinois University, Macomb, professor of African studies, chair and interim director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center, former chair of the Department of African Studies.
Watching sports, traveling to sporting events, and traveling to Civil Rights and Civil War museums.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Pursuing a Promise and How Your Government Really Works
F. Erik Brooks is an African American studies professor who also speaks at public events about African American history, historically black colleges and universities, popular culture, multiculturalism, and diversity. Brooks is also the author or coauthor of numerous books in his areas of interest. For example, in his book titled Pursuing a Promise: A History of African Americans at Georgia Southern University, Brooks discusses individuals who contributed African American culture at the university, including the various struggles they faced involved with integration. A Reference & Research Book News contributor noted that Brooks offers an alternative view of the “the myth” that Georgia Southern University experienced a quiet desegregation.
Brooks is also the coauthor of books with Glenn L. Starks, including How Your Government Really Works: A Topical Encyclopedia of the Federal Government. The book is made up of a wide range of entries designed to instruct readers on how the three branches of the U.S. federal government work. The book include several appendixes, including the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States, as well as information concerning how to read legal and statutory citations. Also included is a historical timeline of the federal government. A Reference & Research Book News contributor remarked that the volume’s entries range from “‘Administrative Procedure Act of 1946’ to ‘the Vice President.'”
Historically Black College and Universities and Thurgood Marshall
Brooks and Starks are also coauthors of Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia. The volume includes detailed information on each black college or university and historical and current events that impacted the schools. The book is separated into six major time periods, with each time period beginning with an introductory essay to place the information in context. Also include are these schools’ cultural and student organizations and a list of notable alumni that takes up 60 pages.
“This is an excellent primary source for undergraduates to use in beginning research,” wrote L.L. Morgan in Choice. Shannon Pritting, in a review for Reference & User Services Quarterly, noted that most o the information is available online but added: “The aggregate context of both the short essays next to histories of the HBCUs presents the reader with all the information he or she would need to begin to understand the history of” these colleges.
In Thurgood Marshall: A Biography, Brooks and Starks provided a biography of the first African American Supreme Court justice, who served from 1967 until 1991. The book begins with a discussion of Thurgood’s early life and his education followed by information on his career as a lawyer for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The authors delve into many of the cases Marshall was involved in, most notably Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a landmark Supreme Court case in which the court decided that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students were unconstitutional. Also addressed are Marshall’s views about the Vietnam War and the legacy he left behind.
Tigers in the Tempest
In his book Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights, Brooks examines how issues surrounding race, politics, an higher education in Savannah, Georgia, affected Savannah State University (SSU). The university is the oldest public historically black university in Georgia. “The book … is an excellent account of the Civil Rights history of Black Savannah coupled with the detailed story of SSU and its role within that history,” noted the Tigers Roar Online contributor Nixon Travis.
Brooks is primarily interested in discussing SSU within the context of it being “an incubator for activism,” as noted by Journal of Southern History contributor Jelani M. Favors. The book starts by providing a history of black Savannah back to days of slavery and how slaves from South Carolina were used to settle Savannah. He goes on to discuss the establishment of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth, which became SSU. He pays special attention to Richard R. Wright, who led the university through its formative stages for three decades.
Brooks points out that Wright made the decision to teach both normal skills and college preparatory work during the institution’s early days, as well as college level courses. Wright was a major leader of black America who was against white philanthropists determining black agendas at the school, which occurred at many of the other historically black colleges and universities. Wright was also dedicated to helping ensure that black college graduates had an opportunity at meaningful jobs beyond menial labor. Tigers in the Tempest details how student activism at the university came about in the 1960s. Throughout the book Brooks weaves together local, state, and national politics into the story of SSU and its students participation in the Civil Rights Movement.
“The strengths of the book come from Brooks’s discussion of the rise of the modern civil rights movement in Savannah,” wrote Journal of Southern History contributor Jelani M. Favors. Nixon Travis, in his review for the Lions Roar Online, remarked: “Brooks provides an excellent and accurate retelling of the university history with sources from local journalistic publications.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Choice, March, 2012, L.L. Morgan, review of Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia, p. 1235.
Journal of Southern History, August, 2016 Jelani M. Favors, review of Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights, p. 735.
Reference & Research Book News, August, 2006, review of Pursuing a Promise: A History of African Americans at Georgia Southern University; February, 2009, review of How Your Government Really Works: A Topical Encyclopedia of the Federal Government; December, 2011, review of Historically Black Colleges and Universities; June, 2012, review of Thurgood Marshall: A Biography.
Reference & User Services Quarterly, summer, 2012, Shannon Pritting, review of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, p. 371.
ONLINE
Tigers Roar Online, http://www.tigersroar.com/ (October 13, 2015), review of Tigers in the Tempest.
Western Illinois University Web site, http://www.wiu.edu/ (March 16, 2017), author faculty information.*
LC control no.: n 2006014199
Descriptive conventions:
rda
Personal name heading:
Brooks, F. Erik
See also: Brooks, Erik
Birth date: 19670107
Found in: Brooks, F. Erik. Pursuing a promise, 2006: ECIP t.p. (F.
Erik Brooks)
Georgia Southern University website, Feb. 27, 2006 (Dr.
Erik Brooks)
Glenn L. Starks. How your government really works, 2008:
E-CIP t.p. (F. Erik Brooks) data view (b. 7 Jan. 1967)
Associated language:
eng
================================================================================
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS AUTHORITIES
Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540
Questions? Contact: ils@loc.gov
F. Erik Brooks is a Professor and Associate Director of the Centennial Honors College at Western Illinois University. He has also served as the former Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Western Illinois University. He is originally from Montgomery, Alabama.
Dr. Brooks earned a Doctor of Philosophy from the L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University. He holds three Master's degrees. He earned a Master of Science in Counseling and Human Development from Troy State University, a Master of Public Administration from Auburn University Montgomery, and a Master of Education from Alabama State University. Dr. Brooks earned a Bachelor of Science in Journalism and Art from Troy State University.
He is a sought after speaker and he is often called upon to speak at public events discussing African American History, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, popular culture, multiculturalism, and diversity. When not working, Dr. Brooks enjoys watching sports, traveling to sporting events, and traveling to Civil Rights and Civil War museums.
F. Erik Brooks, Ph.D.
Chair and Interim Director of the Gwendolyn Brooks Cultural Center
Doctoral Degree: Virginia Commonwealth University
Contact Info
Phone: (309) 298-1181
Email: aas@wiu.edu
Office:
232 Morgan Hall
1 University Circle
Macomb, IL 61455
Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights
Jelani M. Favors
82.3 (Aug. 2016): p735.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Southern Historical Association
http://www.uga.edu/~sha
Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights. By F. Erik Brooks. (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2014. Pp. [xiv], 230. $35.00, ISBN 978-0-88146-494-8.)
Historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are pillars of the black freedom movement in the United States. The collective contributions of students, alumni, and administrators effectively challenged and transformed the nation's social, political, and economic landscape. A handful of scholars have recently paid closer attention to the critical roles played by these institutions. F. Erik Brooks has added to this growing body of research with his latest book, Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
Brooks's longitudinal study focuses on Savannah State University (SSU) as an incubator for activism. Brooks achieves his goal of outlining the history of the freedom movement in Savannah; however, the centrality of SSU to the long movement for black liberation is at times unclear. Brooks pays careful attention to several key players in the Savannah freedom struggle, which had its origins in the black church during slavery. However, by the time Brooks begins to discuss the nascent development of the city's only HBCU, the reader is left wondering how the militant politics of Richard Wright Sr., who served as president of SSU for thirty years, impacted the school's curricular development and set the tone of campus politics, and how major figures in the movement, such as the inimitable Westley W. Law, were shaped and molded as students at SSU. The sources that would normally provide this intimate portrait (student newspapers, alumni bulletins, diaries or memoirs of former faculty and alumni) are noticeably absent from this section of the manuscript. Such valuable primary resources may have been inaccessible to the author or even nonexistent, but their omission weakens the author's narrative on the importance of SSU to the struggle for black freedom.
Brooks finally provides more detailed attention to the origins of student activism on campus with the arrival of the turbulent 1960s, yet much of student life and the critical development of on-campus dissent in the first half of the twentieth century goes unaddressed. Brooks only tantalizes the reader with superficial discussions of professors Miken Pope and Asa Gordon, failing to dig deeper into their roles in creating the radicalism that eventually blossomed in the second half of the twentieth century. Specificity surrounding the role of SSU shrinks even further as Brooks discusses the failures of post-civil rights era politics in the city. He discusses '"new school' African American leaders" who emerged to counter the traditional black leadership of Savannah, but he fails to highlight what connection (if any) these new leaders had with SSU (p. 139).
The strengths of the book come from Brooks's discussion of the rise of the modern civil rights movement in Savannah. For this analysis he finally turns to student newspapers as sources to give insight on how students saw the burgeoning struggle. Another positive attribute of the book is the meticulous discussion of the 1996 campus revolt over the poor conditions of the campus infrastructure. However, the author fails to adequately contextualize the adverse effects of segregation and the deliberate underfunding that particularly plagued public HBCUs across the South.
Throughout the text, the author overly focuses on details of campus and city life that fail to unveil the rich tradition of activism that the author claims SSU embodied. If SSU served as the epicenter of black citizens' struggle against white supremacy and segregation, the reader lacks specifics about how "Tigers" weathered the "tempest" of the early twentieth century. With vague details and often glaring omissions, the book leaves the reader wondering exactly to what extent the university served as an instrument for social and political change in the long history of the struggle for civil rights in Savannah.
JELANI M. FAVORS
Clayton State University
Favors, Jelani M.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Favors, Jelani M. "Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights." Journal of Southern History, vol. 82, no. 3, 2016, p. 735+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA460447821&it=r&asid=a4f4f6576cb1ee607b2a57014c898733. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A460447821
Brooks, F. Erik. Historically black colleges and universities: an encyclopedia
L.L. Morgan
49.7 (Mar. 2012): p1235.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 American Library Association CHOICE
http://www.ala.org/acrl/choice/about
49-3625
LC2781
2011-15380 CIP
Brooks, F. Erik. Historically black colleges and universities: an encyclopedia, by F. Erik Brooks and Glenn L. Starks. Greenwood, 2011. 338p bibl index afp ISBN 9780313394157, $89.00; ISBN 9780313394164, contact publisher for price
In the United States historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are the primary producers of black academic achievement. This encyclopedia by Brooks (Georgia Southern Univ.) and Starks (US Department of Defense) provides an excellent overview of how these institutions began and continue to thrive in the 21st-century United States. This resource is for scholars, historians, and information enthusiasts who are interested in the historical context in which the educational attainment of Africans in the US began to formalize and in the context in which it exists today. History scholars will appreciate the executive orders mandated by various presidents of the United States, the critical examination of issues involving these institutions, an extensive bibliography for further research, and the extended listing of notable alumni of the varied institutions. The chapters likely to have the most impact are those offering historical material on HBCUs after the 1900s, and from the 1960s through the 1970s; and on the social heritage and current status of HBCUs. This volume also provides some very sound primary resources that provide an excellent backdrop to the directions in which HBCUs can move forward in the 21st century. This is an excellent primary source for undergraduates to use in beginning research. In addition to biographical information, the volume includes a time line and photographs. Summing Up: Highly recommended. *** Lower- and upper-level undergraduates.--L. L. Morgan, University of Notre Dame
Morgan, L.L.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Morgan, L.L. "Brooks, F. Erik. Historically black colleges and universities: an encyclopedia." CHOICE: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, Mar. 2012, p. 1235+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA282213337&it=r&asid=900ae9ab25f5faf8c464c30280c357a0. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A282213337
Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia
Shannon Pritting
51.4 (Summer 2012): p371.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 American Library Association
http://www.rusq.org/
Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia. By F. Erik Brooks and Glenn L. Starks. Santa Barbara, Calif.: Greenwood, 2011. $89 (ISBN: 978-0-313-39415-7).
Greenwood's Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia offers a concise and well edited collection of materials for beginning researchers to identify the major issues and historical events about Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). The short single-volume set (338 pages), offers the brevity in its coverage that high school researchers and general interest readers will enjoy. The authors declare that the encyclopedia "was written for a wide audience, to include lay people, students, academics, and policymakers" (xvi), and the writing and contents are accessible and jargon-free but lack the depth that academics would desire. Editors F. Erik Brooks and Glenn L. Starks have both published works on the history of the U.S. Government and HBCUs and last collaborated on How Your Government Really Works: A Topical Encyclopedia of the Federal Government (Greenwood, 2008). The encyclopedia is arranged to provide a sequential history of HBCUs, divided in six major time periods such as "Reconstruction through 1899," with each featuring a well-researched introductory essay providing the context of the development of HBCUs. One page entries on individual HBCUs are arranged according to the date they were founded, with twenty to thirty schools included in each section. This organization helps to contextualize the founding of the school, but there could be more about the unique history of individual HBCUs. The content for the entries on the individual HBCUs offers some information about academic strengths and institutional histories but are somewhat limited as "these histories were primarily obtained from each school's official website" (xvi). The reviewer checked institutional histories in the encyclopedia with the websites of fifteen HBCUs and found that the entries in the encyclopedia were very similar to the history pages on the colleges' websites.
There are also sections with primary documents such as relevant legislation and laws and a list of websites and DVDs about HBCUs. The "Website and DVD Resources" section provides references to resources that are mostly general interest and does not have the depth of directories of other works on HBCUs. The "Notable Alumni" section, a major portion of the encyclopedia at sixty pages, provides a comprehensive list but is far too heavy on professional athletes, including many who were not major players. As a consequence, the strength of the alumni section loses its value as a browsable index of accomplishments of alumni.
Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia is an affordable addition to the surprisingly few books on HBCUs. Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Reference Handbook (ABC-Clio, 2003) is a recent title with mostly similar contents, without an in-depth alumni list, but does have a more comprehensive annotated directory of relevant organizations and sources. Although not a reference book, America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities: A Narrative History by Bobby L. Lovett (Mercer University Press, 2011) is a well-researched and extremely readable history of HBCUs that is encyclopedic in its coverage and could serve as a more appropriate reference text for universities or colleges.
Although much of the content in Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia is freely available online, the aggregate context of both the short essays next to histories of the HBCUs presents the reader with all the information he or she would need to begin to understand the history of HBCUs. Recommended for public and school libraries.--Shannon Putting, Interim Coordinator of Reference, SUNY Oswego
Pritting, Shannon
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Pritting, Shannon. "Historically Black Colleges and Universities: An Encyclopedia." Reference & User Services Quarterly, Summer 2012, p. 371+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA318105170&it=r&asid=9212ad4720d0f80b19e52bf760c81bd2. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A318105170
Thurgood Marshall; a biography
27.3 (June 2012):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2012 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
9780313349164
Thurgood Marshall; a biography.
Starks, Glenn L. and F. Erik Brooks.
Greenwood Press
145 pages
$37.00
Hardcover
Greenwood biographies
KF8745
Starks, who works for the US Department of Defense and writes on public administration and American politics, and Brooks (political science, Georgia Southern U.) offer a biography of Thurgood Marshall for students and general readers. After an introduction to Marshall's early life and education, the biography details his career as a lawyer for the NAACP, including specific cases; his success in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; his appointments at the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Court, as US solicitor general, and at the US Supreme Court, including specific decisions; his support of the Vietnam War; and his legacy. (A[c] Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Thurgood Marshall; a biography." Reference & Research Book News, June 2012. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA291872592&it=r&asid=886cb204c6b6c1e7158d81192edf3c42. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A291872592
Historically black colleges and universities; an encyclopedia
26.6 (Dec. 2011):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2011 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
9780313394157
Historically black colleges and universities; an encyclopedia.
Brooks, F. Erik and Glenn L. Starks.
Greenwood Press
2011
338 pages
$89.00
Hardcover
LC2781
This comprehensive reference volume on the history of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States provides detailed information on each school as well as discussions of major trends and events, historical and contemporary, that affect these institutions. The volume also includes information about cultural and student organizations associated with HBCUs and a listing of notable alumni from HBCUs and their achievements. The volume includes numerous black and white photographs and a timeline of events. Brooks is a professor at Georgia Southern University and Starks is senior manager for the US Defense Department.
([c]2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Historically black colleges and universities; an encyclopedia." Reference & Research Book News, Dec. 2011. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA274119986&it=r&asid=38b4554a2a00fa242460f7f1a437611e. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A274119986
How your government really works; a topical encyclopedia of the federal government
24.1 (Feb. 2009):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
9780313347610
How your government really works; a topical encyclopedia of the federal government.
Starks, Glenn L. and F. Erik Brooks.
Greenwood Press
2008
334 pages
$75.00
Hardcover
JK311
In a volume with entries spanning 'Administrative Procedure Act of 1946' to 'the Vice President of the United States,' Starks (Defense Logistics Agency) and Brooks (political science, Georgia Southern U.) explain how the three branches of the contemporary US federal government operate. Appended are a timeline of US federal government history; glossary; resources; The Declaration of Independence; The Constitution of the United States; an organizational chart of the US Senate for the 110th Congress; and information on how to read legal and statutory citations; lists of the presidents, independent government entities, patriotic and charitable nonprofit organizations; Supreme Court chief justices and associate justices since 1900; member states of the United Nations; members of the World Trade Organization; and US embassies.
([c]2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"How your government really works; a topical encyclopedia of the federal government." Reference & Research Book News, Feb. 2009. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA196721559&it=r&asid=c27bb11bbf1edcb15451525275f7fec7. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A196721559
Pursuing a promise; a history of African Americans at Georgia Southern University
21.3 (Aug. 2006):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2006 Ringgold, Inc.
http://www.ringgold.com/
9780881460186
Pursuing a promise; a history of African Americans at Georgia Southern University.
Brooks, F. Erik.
Mercer University Press
2006
193 pages
$35.00
Hardcover
LD1963
Describing the contributions of blacks at his institution, Books (political science and public administration, Georgia Southern U.), discusses the individual people involved in integrating and sustaining African-American culture at a Southern university, how they came together, their day-to-day realities, and their internal and external struggle to achieve. He counters the myth that desegregation occurred quietly at the school.
([c]20062005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Pursuing a promise; a history of African Americans at Georgia Southern University." Reference & Research Book News, Aug. 2006. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA148974116&it=r&asid=188563c535113185d64d351a6e8a3948. Accessed 23 Feb. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A148974116
Book Review: Tigers in the Tempest
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Book Review: Tigers in the Tempest
Book Review: Tigers in the Tempest
Posted: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 6:20 pm
0 comments
NixonTravis
Posted on Oct 13, 2015
by NixonTravis
The book “Tigers in the Tempest: Savannah State University and the Struggle for Civil Rights” by author F. Erik Brooks is an excellent account of the Civil Rights history of Black Savannah coupled with the detailed story of Savannah State University and its role within that history.
Brooks begins with writing about the history of Black Savannah dating all the way back to South Carolina slaves used in the settlement of the city. He then starts the story of Georgia State Industrial College for Colored Youth and how Richard R. Wright led the university from its infant stages over the next 30 years. Brooks makes it a significant point to write about the Wright’s decision to create two courses of work with a normal school and a regular college. Wright wanted to ensure that Blacks not only had the chance to learn normal skill and college preparatory work, but to also ensure that they were able to gain knowledge as college graduates. Brooks wrote about how this line of educational philosophy made Wright a political adversary of Booker T. Washington and how Wright was seen as a major leader within Black America at the time. Wright wanted to ensure that Black were not being led into menial labor jobs and allowing White philanthropists to set the Black agenda like other HBCUs were doing at the time. Brooks does an outstanding job of explaining decisions made by the university that impacted student life and life within Savannah.
Brooks weaves in and out of the Savannah Civil Rights history when writing about the integration of public servicemen such as the Savannah Nine and life in Savannah after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The book shows how the university has always had a political hand within the city and the president of the university has always been a political figure, a precedent set by Wright, whether they choose to exercise it or not. For example, President Hubert and President Guy Wells of South Georgia Teachers College (Georgia Southern University) both worked together to integrate higher education within Georgia and build an affiliation between the schools. It also provides examples of how university students have always been outspoken on political issues from national all the way to campus politics and even influencing the office of the university president.
The book also speaks to the history Armstrong State University and how the university will always be tied to Savannah State University not only geographically, but politically. The idea of a merger has been discussed and proposed more times than the public knows about and Savannah State University still remained a beacon within the community for over 125 years. Brooks provides an excellent and accurate retelling of the university history with sources from local journalistic publications of Savannah Tribune, Savannah Morning News and Tiger’s Roar itself. The entire history is told, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Savannah State University is the most significant institution of education within the city of Savannah and Brooks explains how the welfare of the city is tied to the upbringing of the university. Anyone interested in the history of Savannah or Savannah State should read this book.