Download or read book The Wrong Side of Murder Creek written by Bob Zellner and published by NewSouth Books. This book was released on 2008-09-01 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Even forty years after the civil rights movement, the transition from son and grandson of Klansmen to field secretary of SNCC seems quite a journey. In the early 1960s, when Bob Zellner’s professors and classmates at a small church school in Alabama thought he was crazy for even wanting to do research on civil rights, it was nothing short of remarkable. Now, in his long-awaited memoir, Zellner tells how one white Alabamian joined ranks with the black students who were sitting-in, marching, fighting, and sometimes dying to challenge the Southern “way of life” he had been raised on but rejected. Decades later, he is still protesting on behalf of social change and equal rights. Fortunately, he took the time, with co-author Constance Curry, to write down his memories and reflections. He was in all the campaigns and was close to all the major figures. He was beaten, arrested, and reviled by some but admired and revered by others. The Wrong Side of Murder Creek, winner of the 2009 Lillian Smith Book Award, is Bob Zellner’s larger-than-life story, and it was worth waiting for.
Download or read book The Wrong Side of Murder Creek written by Bob Zellner and published by John F Blair Pub. This book was released on 2008 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author describes his experiences as a civil rights activist in the South from 1960 to 1967.
Download or read book Deer Creek Drive written by Beverly Lowry and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2023-08-01 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The stunning true story of a murder that rocked the Mississippi Delta and forever shaped one author’s life and perception of home. “Mix together a bloody murder in a privileged white family, a false accusation against a Black man, a suspicious town, a sensational trial with colorful lawyers, and a punishment that didn’t fit the crime, and you have the best of southern gothic fiction. But the very best part is that the story is true.” —John Grisham In 1948, in the most stubbornly Dixiefied corner of the Jim Crow south, society matron Idella Thompson was viciously murdered in her own home: stabbed at least 150 times and left facedown in one of the bathrooms. Her daughter, Ruth Dickins, was the only other person in the house. She told authorities a Black man she didn’t recognize had fled the scene, but no evidence of the man's presence was uncovered. When Dickins herself was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, the community exploded. Petitions pleading for her release were drafted, signed, and circulated, and after only six years, the governor of Mississippi granted Ruth Dickins an indefinite suspension of her sentence and she was set free. In Deer Creek Drive, Beverly Lowry—who was ten at the time of the murder and lived mere miles from the Thompsons’ home—tells a story of white privilege that still has ramifications today, and reflects on the brutal crime, its aftermath, and the ways it clarified her own upbringing in Mississippi.
Download or read book Combined Destinies written by Ann Todd Jealous and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2013 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By beginning a conversation that encourages self-examination and compassion, Combined Destinies invites its readers to look at how white Americans have been hurt by the very ideology that their ancestors created. Editors Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell, both experienced psychotherapists skilled at facilitating dialogue about racial issues, are cognizant of the challenges that even the thought of such conversations often presents. Their book is based on the premise that for positive and lasting change to occur, it is necessary to open hearts as well as minds. This courageous anthology posits that unearned privilege has damaged the psyche of white people as well as their capacity to understand racism. Using intimate stories, some from writers who have never before spoken of these highly charged issues, Jealous and Haskell offer readers a chance to explore their own experiences. Drawing on the personal and heartfelt stories of diverse contributors, including Robert Zellner, Bettina Aptheker, Deb Busman, Deborah Burke, Joe Ruklick, and Alisa Fineman, Combined Destinies is organized thematically, with individual chapters that focus on, for example, guilt, shame, silence, or resistance. The book includes an extensive reader's guide, posing questions for discussion pertaining to each chapter. Anyone who is interested in mental health and spiritual healing will benefit from reading this book, but it's especially suitable for teachers, professors and students of teacher education, the social sciences, and U.S. history, as well as social activists, members of community groups, therapists, clergy, and other members of the counseling profession.
Download or read book Little Black Book of Murder written by Nancy Martin and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-08-06 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Society columnist Nora Blackbird is thrust into the world of celebrity tabloid gossip when a billionaire buys the farm…. Nora’s assigned to write a profile on billionaire fashion designer Swain Starr, who recently retired to build a high-tech organic farm with his new wife, Zephyr, a former supermodel. But before Nora can get the story, the mogul is murdered. And now her boss wants her to snap up an exclusive on who killed Starr before the cops do. But solving this murder won’t be easy with a family as colorful as Nora’s. Mick, her sort-of husband, is associating with unsavory characters from his past. Her sister Libby is transforming into a stage mom for her diabolical twins. And Emma, the youngest Blackbird, is mysteriously kicked out of the house by Mick. Nora’s home life may be hogging the spotlight, but there’s also a matter of Starr’s missing pig, which just might be the key to solving this mystery and the way Nora can bring home the bacon….
Download or read book Anatomy of Injustice written by Raymond Bonner and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2013-01-08 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Pulitzer Prize winner Raymond Bonner, the gripping story of a grievously mishandled murder case that put a twenty-three-year-old man on death row. In January 1982, an elderly white widow was found brutally murdered in the small town of Greenwood, South Carolina. Police immediately arrested Edward Lee Elmore, a semiliterate, mentally retarded black man with no previous felony record. His only connection to the victim was having cleaned her gutters and windows, but barely ninety days after the victim's body was found, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Elmore had been on death row for eleven years when a young attorney named Diana Holt first learned of his case. With the exemplary moral commitment and tenacious investigation that have distinguished his reporting career, Bonner follows Holt's battle to save Elmore's life and shows us how his case is a textbook example of what can go wrong in the American justice system. Moving, enraging, suspenseful, and enlightening, Anatomy of Injustice is a vital contribution to our nation's ongoing, increasingly important debate about inequality and the death penalty.
Download or read book A Plain Disappearance written by Amanda Flower and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2013 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed new author Amanda Flower continues her series of cozy and comedic Amish mysteries ("Bring on the next one!" -USA Today) as romance, murder, and a sudden disappearance take their places at Christmastime in Appleseed Creek.
Download or read book A Plain Death written by Amanda Flower and published by B&H Publishing Group. This book was released on 2012 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chloe Humphrey, 24, is a fish out of water as the computer whiz living in Ohio's Amish Country. She's stretched even further when a local accident turns to murder, and she's in a position to solve the case.
Download or read book Done Gone Wrong written by Cathy Pickens and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2006-08-29 with total page 211 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A chance to be a part of a headline-grabbing case against a drug company has lured attorney Avery Andrews back to Charleston, South Carolina. She agrees to meet with Mark Tilman, a young doctor from her hometown who seems to have something on his mind. When he doesn't show, she figures he stood her up and takes comfort in the stilt restaurant's she-crab soup. But it turns out he had a fatal car accident. Something about the crash isn't right, and Mark's father asks Avery to look into his death. Between that and digging up dirt on the wonder drug Uplift, Avery is coming up with more questions than answers. Of course, Avery isn't the only one making headlines. Back in Dacus, her mom is on live television confronting a teenager's dynamite-toting paramour in a hostage crisis at the Burger Hut, Great-Aunt Aletha is mixing it up with the now-toupeeless postman, and the son of a ghost wants vengeance. In short, it's life as usual back in Dacus, while in Charleston, Avery is forced to face demons from her past. Cathy Pickens's first mystery novel established her as a distinctive voice in the cozy tradition. In this second, readers can expect more Southern wit and charm, more courtroom drama, and even crazier antics from the folks back home, all the while falling more and more in love with this endearing heroine.
Download or read book Murder on Youngers Creek Road written by Gary P. West and published by Acclaim Press. This book was released on 2020-03-20 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 13, 1975, the enterprising community of Elizabethtown, Kentucky (a few miles from Fort Knox and the gold vault) was rocked with the news that one of their own, Peggy Rhodes--beloved housewife, mother, and grandmother--was killed when a bomb exploded in the family barn. An hour south along I-65 lies Bowling Green, a city known for small town values, a burgeoning industrial complex, the expanding Western Kentucky University campus, and as "Home of the Corvette". However, the city was also just one generation removed from earning the nickname "Little Chicago," a regional hotbed for car thefts, bootlegging, gambling, prostitution--and worse still--bombings and horrific murders. Murder on Youngers Creek Road is the true story of a murder-for-hire gone wrong that involves a well-known automobile dealer, two hit men hired to kill him, and a pair of high-profile business partners. The product of more than two years of research and interviews and writing, this book details one of the most complex murders of the decade and how it brought together two Kentucky towns in an unflattering way. It is a "tale of two cities" mired in the muck of greed, violence and murder, and of local efforts to bring the guilty parties to justice. In the end, both the innocent and the guilty would lose their lives. In the beginning investigators were baffled. Why would anyone want to kill a 57-year-old woman, who by all appearances did her part in community activities, loved her family and enjoyed her time playing bridge with friends? Two weeks into the New Year of 1975, a horrific explosion ripped through the body of Peggy Rhodes and her pet horse, Tony. Who could possibly have wanted her dead? On a cold dark January night, a sudden blast interrupted the stillness of freshly fallen snow and with it, the lives of several Kentucky families were changed forever....
Download or read book Saying It Loud written by Mark Whitaker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2024-02-06 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mark Whitaker “writes with the eye of a journalist and ear of a poet” (The Boston Globe) to tell the story of the momentous year that redefined the civil rights movement as a new sense of Black identity, expressed in the slogan “Black Power,” challenged the nonviolent philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis. In “crisp prose” (The New York Times) and novelistic detail Saying It Loud tells the story of how the Black Power phenomenon began to challenge the traditional civil rights movement in the turbulent year of 1966. Saying It Loud takes you inside the dramatic events in this seminal year, from Stokely Carmichael’s middle-of-the-night ouster of moderate icon John Lewis as a chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to Carmichael’s impassioned cry of “Black Power!” during a protest march in rural Mississippi. From Julian Bond’s humiliating and racist ouster from the Georgia state legislature because of his antiwar statements to Ronald Reagan’s election as California governor riding a “white backlash” vote against Black Power and urban unrest. From the founding of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in Oakland, California, to the origins of Kwanzaa, the Black Arts Movement, and the first Black studies programs. From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.’s ill-fated campaign to take the civil rights movement north to Chicago to the wrenching ousting of the white members of SNCC. Deeply researched and widely reported, Saying It Loud offers brilliant portraits of the major characters in the yearlong drama and provides new details and insights from key players and journalists who covered the story. It also makes a compelling case for why the lessons from 1966 still resonate in the era of Black Lives Matter and the fierce contemporary battles over voting rights, identity politics, and the teaching of Black History.
Download or read book The Mississippi Encyclopedia written by Ted Ownby and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2017-05-25 with total page 2548 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recipient of the 2018 Special Achievement Award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters and Recipient of a 2018 Heritage Award for Education from the Mississippi Heritage Trust The perfect book for every Mississippian who cares about the state, this is a mammoth collaboration in which thirty subject editors suggested topics, over seven hundred scholars wrote entries, and countless individuals made suggestions. The volume will appeal to anyone who wants to know more about Mississippi and the people who call it home. The book will be especially helpful to students, teachers, and scholars researching, writing about, or otherwise discovering the state, past and present. The volume contains entries on every county, every governor, and numerous musicians, writers, artists, and activists. Each entry provides an authoritative but accessible introduction to the topic discussed. The Mississippi Encyclopedia also features long essays on agriculture, archaeology, the civil rights movement, the Civil War, drama, education, the environment, ethnicity, fiction, folklife, foodways, geography, industry and industrial workers, law, medicine, music, myths and representations, Native Americans, nonfiction, poetry, politics and government, the press, religion, social and economic history, sports, and visual art. It includes solid, clear information in a single volume, offering with clarity and scholarship a breadth of topics unavailable anywhere else. This book also includes many surprises readers can only find by browsing.
Download or read book The Freedom Schools written by Jon N. Hale and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2016-06-07 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Created in 1964 as part of the Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Mississippi Freedom Schools were launched by educators and activists to provide an alternative education for African American students that would facilitate student activism and participatory democracy. The schools, as Jon N. Hale demonstrates, had a crucial role in the civil rights movement and a major impact on the development of progressive education throughout the nation. Designed and run by African American and white educators and activists, the Freedom Schools counteracted segregationist policies that inhibited opportunities for black youth. Providing high-quality, progressive education that addressed issues of social justice, the schools prepared African American students to fight for freedom on all fronts. Forming a political network, the Freedom Schools taught students how, when, and where to engage politically, shaping activists who trained others to challenge inequality. Based on dozens of first-time interviews with former Freedom School students and teachers and on rich archival materials, this remarkable social history of the Mississippi Freedom Schools is told from the perspective of those frequently left out of civil rights narratives that focus on national leadership or college protestors. Hale reveals the role that school-age students played in the civil rights movement and the crucial contribution made by grassroots activists on the local level. He also examines the challenges confronted by Freedom School activists and teachers, such as intimidation by racist Mississippians and race relations between blacks and whites within the schools. In tracing the stories of Freedom School students into adulthood, this book reveals the ways in which these individuals turned training into decades of activism. Former students and teachers speak eloquently about the principles that informed their practice and the influence that the Freedom School curriculum has had on education. They also offer key strategies for further integrating the American school system and politically engaging today's youth.
Download or read book Shattered Glass in Birmingham written by Randall C. Jimerson and published by LSU Press. This book was released on 2014-03-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shattered Glass in Birmingham traces the experiences of a white northern family during the climax of the civil rights movement in Alabama's largest city. Recounted primarily from Randall Jimerson's perspective as one of five children of Reverend Norman C. "Jim" Jimerson, executive director of the Alabama Council on Human Relations, the narrative explores the public and private impact of the civil rights struggle. Based on extensive archival research as well as oral histories, Shattered Glass in Birmingham offers the reader a ground-level view of prejudice, discrimination, violence, and courage. In 1961 the Alabama Council on Human Relations charged Rev. Jimerson with the critical task of improving communications and racial understanding between Alabama's black and white communities, employing him to travel extensively throughout the state to coordinate the activities of Human Relations chapters across Alabama. Along the way, he developed close working relationships with black and white ministers, educators, and businessmen and served as an effective bridge between the communities. Rev. Jimerson's success as a community activist was due largely to his ability to gain the trust of both white moderates and key figures in the civil rights movement: Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. Lucius Pitts, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Rev. Wyatt T. Walker, Rev. Andrew Young, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He represents the hundreds of people who worked behind the scenes to help achieve the goals of civil rights activists. After Klan members killed four young girls in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in September 1963, Rev. Jimerson preserved several pieces of stained glass that had blown out of the church's windows. Similarly, Shattered Glass in Birmingham offers us a fresh and important perspective on these climactic events, supplying one of the many fragments that make up the complex story of our nation's fight for civil liberties.
Download or read book Black Bodies in the River written by Davis W. Houck and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2022-07-15 with total page 170 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nearly sixty years after Freedom Summer, its events—especially the lynching of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Mickey Schwerner—stand out as a critical episode of the civil rights movement. The infamous deaths of these activists dominate not just the history but also the public memory of the Mississippi Summer Project. Beginning in the late 1970s, however, movement veterans challenged this central narrative with the shocking claim that during the search for Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner, the FBI and other law enforcement personnel discovered many unidentified Black bodies in Mississippi’s swamps, rivers, and bayous. This claim has evolved in subsequent years as activists, journalists, filmmakers, and scholars have continued to repeat it, and the number of supposed Black bodies—never identified—has grown from five to more than two dozen. In Black Bodies in the River: Searching for Freedom Summer, author Davis W. Houck sets out to answer two questions: Were Black bodies discovered that summer? And why has the shocking claim only grown in the past several decades—despite evidence to the contrary? In other words, what rhetorical work does the Black bodies claim do, and with what audiences? Houck’s story begins in the murky backwaters of the Mississippi River and the discovery of the bodies of Henry Dee and Charles Moore, murdered on May 2, 1964, by the Ku Klux Klan. He pivots next to the Council of Federated Organization’s voter registration efforts in Mississippi leading up to Freedom Summer. He considers the extent to which violence generally and expectations about interracial violence, in particular, serves as a critical context for the strategy and rhetoric of the Summer Project. Houck then interrogates the unnamed-Black-bodies claim from a historical and rhetorical perspective, illustrating that the historicity of the bodies in question is perhaps less the point than the critique of who we remember from that summer and how we remember them. Houck examines how different memory texts—filmic, landscape, presidential speech, and museums—function both to bolster and question the centrality of murdered white men in the legacy of Freedom Summer.
Download or read book The Freedom Rides and Alabama written by Noelle Matteson and published by NewSouth Books. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 98 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This concise guidebook gives a brief overview of the 1961 Freedom Rides, a crucial moment in American history in which an interracial group traveled across the South to protest segregated transportation. The Freedom Rides and Alabama focuses on the Freedom Riders' experiences in Alabama, from the firebombing of their bus in Anniston to surviving beatings in Birmingham. A large portion of this book describes the riders' arrival in Montgomery, including the violent white mob that greeted them and the ensuing mass meeting at First Baptist Church, where leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth spoke. This volume puts the Freedom Rides in historical context and is published in conjunction with the Alabama Historical Commission to celebrate the opening of a Montgomery museum at the site of the Greyhound station where the Freedom Riders arrived on their journey south, dedicated to the history of the Freedom Rides on the occasion of their fiftieth anniversary.
Download or read book Robert Parris Moses written by Laura Visser-Maessen and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2016-02-24 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most influential leaders in the civil rights movement, Robert Parris Moses was essential in making Mississippi a central battleground state in the fight for voting rights. As a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Moses presented himself as a mere facilitator of grassroots activism rather than a charismatic figure like Martin Luther King Jr. His self-effacing demeanor and his success, especially in steering the events that led to the volatile 1964 Freedom Summer and the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, paradoxically gave him a reputation of nearly heroic proportions. Examining the dilemmas of a leader who worked to cultivate local leadership, historian Laura Visser-Maessen explores the intellectual underpinnings of Moses's strategy, its achievements, and its struggles. This new biography recasts Moses as an effective, hands-on organizer, safeguarding his ideals while leading from behind the scenes. By returning Moses to his rightful place among the foremost leaders of the movement, Visser-Maessen testifies to Moses's revolutionary approach to grassroots leadership and the power of the individual in generating social change.
