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Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Kent Handy’s The Dark Secrets of Woodruff County is a historical nonfiction account of Kent Lemont Handy’s life in Woodruff County, Arkansas, where his childhood places him inside a Black community living under racial segregation that reaches into everyday life. Handy traces the family from his early years in Gregory into Augusta, where relatives build homes while children learn which places welcome Black residents. The story takes a devastating turn in March 1984 after five members of Handy’s family die in a house fire that the family believes was a racially motivated killing connected to local officials. As questions mount around the official explanation for the fire, Handy becomes the family spokesperson, helping pursue a civil case while seeking an investigation that could establish what happened inside the house that night.
Kent Handy’s The Dark Secrets of Woodruff County is fascinating historical nonfiction, and what I really liked is how Handy makes Woodruff County understandable through the life of one family. The local detail is excellent, such as Handy remembering the Augusta doctor’s clinic where Black patients sat in heat while the white side had air conditioning, which says plenty about segregation in a place he knew firsthand. Handy is very good with the official record, especially during the 1989 federal trial where testimony about the fire marshal’s limited bomb training gives readers a concrete reason the family questioned the ruling. I appreciated how Handy’s own documents, alongside photographs and newspaper articles, remain part of the story as his search for an investigation continues across decades. Well written and riveting, readers interested in civil rights history rooted in Arkansas will both adore and be heartbroken by this book.
