HWHRC Book Club: Common Ground - Part 1

Join us in reading the first half of Common Ground by J. Anthony Lukas. Participants are welcome at any stage of reading, though our discussion will focus on the first half of the book.

The book traces the history of three families: the working-class African-American Twymons, the working-class Irish McGoffs, and the middle-class Yankee Divers. It gives brief genealogical histories of each families, focusing on how the events they went through illuminated Boston history, before narrowing its focus to the racial tension of the 1960s and the 1970s. Through their stories, Common Ground focuses on racial and class conflicts in two Boston neighborhoods: the working-class Irish-American enclave of Charlestown and the uneasily integrated South End.