A major work of history; investigative journalism that breaks new ground; and personal memoir; "Carry Me Home" is a dramatic account of the civil rights era's climactic battle in Birmingham; as the movement led by Martin Luther King; Jr.; brought down the institutions of segregation."The Year of Birmingham;" 1963; was one of the most cataclysmic periods in America's long civil rights struggle. That spring; King's child demonstrators faced down Commissioner Bull Connor's police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches for desegregation -- a spectacle that seemed to belong more in the Old Testament than in twentieth-century America. A few months later; Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated with dynamite; bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and killing four young black girls. Yet these shocking events also brought redemption: They transformed the halting civil rights movement into a national cause and inspired the Civil Rights Act of 1964; which abolished legal segregation once and for all.Diane McWhorter; the daughter of a prominent white Birmingham family; brilliantly captures the opposing sides in this struggle for racial justice. Tracing the roots of the civil rights movement to the Old Left and its efforts to organize labor in the 1930s; "Carry Me Home" shows that the movement was a waning force in desperate need of a victory by the time King arrived in Birmingham. McWhorter describes the competition for primacy among the movement's leaders; especially between Fred Shuttlesworth; Birmingham's flamboyant preacher-activist; and the already world-famous King; who was ambivalent about the direct-action tactics Shuttlesworth had been practicing for years."Carry Me Home" isthe first major movement history to uncover the segregationist resistance. McWhorter charts the careers of the bombers back to the New Deal; when Klansmen were agents of the local iron and coal industrialists fighting organized labor. She reveals the strained and veiled collusion between Birmingham's wealthy establishment and its designated subordinates -- politicians; the police; and the Klan."Carry Me Home" is also the story of the author's family; which was on the wrong side of the civil rights revolution. McWhorter's quest to find out whether her eccentric father; the prodigal son of the white elite; was a member of the Klan mirrors the book's central revelation of collaboration between the city's Big Mules; who kept their hands clean; and the scruffy vigilantes who did the dirty work."Carry Me Home" is the product of years of research in FBI and police files and archives; and of hundreds of interviews; including conversations with Klansmen who belonged to the most violent klavern in America. John and Robert Kennedy; J. Edgar Hoover; George Wallace; Connor; King; and Shuttlesworth appear against the backdrop of the unforgettable events of the civil rights era -- the brutal beating of the Freedom Riders as the police stood by; King's great testament; his "Letter from Birmingham Jail"; and Wallace's defiant "stand in the schoolhouse door." This book is a classic work about this transforming period in American history.
#188818 in Books Vintage 1999-04-27 1999-04-27Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.00 x .77 x 5.20l; .88 #File Name: 0679766766400 pages
Review
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. Wonderful Biography.By VovesExcellent biography. I learned a great deal about Austen and her time; which go hand in hand. Ms. Tomalin seems to be telling the story with ease and then you look at the notes to see the tremendous research behind it all .( which is where the ease comes from ) Ms. Tomalin has read about and thought about and read Austen for a long time and has distilled it beautifully in her book Those authors written about Ms. Tomalin are lucky0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Favorite Austen BiographyBy Copper CavalierI truly enjoyed this lovely biography of Jane Austen. Claire Tomalin writes in an engaging; highly readable style; and approaches the life of Jane Austen from many angles. There are many interesting details about Austen herself; and the characters who shared her world.I appreciated the illustrations and the map of Jane's Hampshire neighborhood. There is also a detailed note section and a helpful family tree at the end of the book.Overall; a very impressive achievement. After reading this biography twice; I am now looking up the author's other titles.4 of 4 people found the following review helpful. You MUST read this bookBy Elizabeth L. BallardA highly readable; infinitely well-researched life of Austen. Especially impressive was the background on all the families in the Austen neighborhood. Superior grasp of time period and very insightful sympathy into what it must have been like for a gifted young Jane Austen to grow up female. A MUST for Austen lovers and scholars.
