The Rabbit Room

If you’d like to introduce yourself to others in the reading group, you can do so here!

Let Justice Roll Down is primarily a memoir (rather than simply an essay on racial justice), so most of what we have read in these early chapters are events and memories from Perkins’ own life. Were there any stories or episodes that stuck with you or made an impression on you particularly?   

At the beginning of the first chapter (pg. 15) Perkins observes that the white people growing up around him were also relatively poor. What are some of the ways in which their experience of economic hardship would have been different from the economic hardship experienced by Perkins and other African Americans in the same community? 

A lot of the national discussion recently has focused on “systemic” or “institutional” racism. What are some of the systems and institutions that affected Perkins’ early life? How did these manifest themselves in concretely in the events recounted in these chapters? 

Perkins writes: “prejudice in the South is both paternalistic and antagonistic.” (pg. 34; see the remainder of the paragraph attached to this quotation.) What do you think Perkins means by this? Does this analysis of Southern prejudice resonate with you? Can you think of examples of this? 

In several places Perkins mentions his special interest in economic matters. He writes about his time in the Army: “The practical effects of my lifestyle — no drinking and a very simple scale of living — meant I had extra money. So for the first time in my life, I could turn the tables on the white man. I could loan him money, at interest, all t…[Read more]

Re-read page 56 and page 63, where Perkins describes his early impressions of Christianity. On the one hand, Perkins had little interest in Christianity, because of its impotence in confronting racism (even more than that, because of the ways it participated in and perpetuated racism). On the other hand, Perkins’ own conversion was driven by a s…[Read more]