A most tolerant little town : the explosive beginning of school desegregation / Rachel Louise Martin.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Simon & Schuster, 2023Copyright date: ©2023Edition: First Simon & Schuster hardcover editionDescription: 362 pages ; 24 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781665905145
- 166590514X
- Clinton High School (Clinton, Tenn.)
- School integration -- Tennessee -- Clinton -- History -- 20th century
- School integration -- Massive resistance movement -- Tennessee -- Clinton -- History -- 20th century
- Racism in education -- Tennessee -- Clinton -- History
- African American students -- Tennessee -- Clinton -- History -- 20th century
- African Americans -- Education -- Tennessee -- Clinton -- History -- 20th century
- African Americans -- Segregation -- Tennessee -- Clinton -- History -- 20th century
- Clinton (Tenn.) -- Race relations
- Clinton (Tenn.) -- Politics and government -- 20th century
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | NonFiction | New | 379.263 M382 | Checked out | 05/07/2024 | 33111011289358 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A "masterful" (Taylor Branch) and "striking" ( The New Yorker ) portrait of a small town living through tumultuous times, this propulsive piece of forgotten civil rights history--about the first school to attempt court-ordered desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board --will forever change how you think of the end of racial segregation in America.
In graduate school, Rachel Martin was sent to a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to attempt court mandated desegregation.
But not everyone wanted to talk. As one founder of the Tennessee White Youth told her, "Honey, there was a lot of ugliness down at the school that year; best we just move on and forget it."
For years, Martin wondered what it was some white residents of Clinton didn't want remembered. So, she went back, eventually interviewing over sixty townsfolk--including nearly a dozen of the first students to desegregate Clinton High--to piece together what happened back in 1956: the death threats and beatings, picket lines and cross burnings, neighbors turned on neighbors and preachers for the first time at a loss for words. The National Guard rushed to town, along with national journalists like Edward R. Morrow and even evangelist Billy Graham. But that wasn't the most explosive secret Martin learned...
In A Most Tolerant Little Town , Rachel Martin weaves together over a dozen perspectives in an intimate, kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a turbulent turning point for America. The result is at once a "gripping" ( The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ) mystery and a moving piece of forgotten civil rights history, rendered "with precision, lucidity and, most of all, a heart inured to false hope" ( The New York Times ).
You may never before have heard of Clinton, Tennessee--but you won't be forgetting the town anytime soon.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
"An intimate portrait of a small Southern town living through tumultuous times, this propulsive piece of forgotten civil rights history--about the first school to attempt court-ordered desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board--will forever change how you think of the end of racial segregation in America. In graduate school, Rachel Martin volunteered with a Southern oral history project. One day, she was sent to a small town in Tennessee, in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of August 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to undergo court-mandated desegregation. After recording a dozen interviews, Rachel asked the museum's curator why everyone she'd been told to gather stories from was white. Weren't there any Black residents of Clinton who remembered this history? A few hours later, she got a call from the head of the oral history project: the town of Clinton didn't want her help anymore. For years, Rachel Martin wondered what it was the white residents of Clinton didn't want remembered. So she went back, eventually interviewing sixty residents--including the surviving Black students who'd desegregated Clinton High--to piece together what happened back in 1956: the death threats and beatings, picket lines and cross burnings, neighbors turned on neighbors and preachers for the first time at a loss for words. The national guard had rushed to town, followed by national journalists like Edward Murrow and even evangelist Billy Graham. And still tensions continued to rise... until white supremacists bombed the school. In A Most Tolerant Little Town, Rachel Martin weaves together a dozen disparate perspectives in an intimate and yet kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a tumultuous turning point for America. The result is a propulsive piece of forgotten civil rights history that reads like a ticking time bomb... and illuminates the devastating costs of being on the frontlines of social change. You may have never before heard of Clinton--but you won't be forgetting the town anytime soon"-- Provided by publisher.
A note on language -- Coming to the clinch, September 2005 -- Descending Freedman's Hill -- Wynona's fight -- Behind school doors -- A carpetbagging troublemaker -- The hardening -- Judging justice -- Victory and defeat -- The best defense -- Invasion -- How to dodge a lynch mob -- Learning the rules -- Vining out -- Small-town games -- Ramping up -- Who, then? -- Tick. Tick. Tick -- Alfred Williams -- A war of nerves -- A desegregated school -- Boom -- Silence, spreading -- From the top of Freedman's Hill, July 2009.