When do current events end and when does history begin?
Birmingham, Alabama, may be asking itself that very question today, as a former Klu Klux Klan member sits in a city court facing charges of murder. It was September 15, 1963, when the blast at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church ended the lives of four young black girls. History galloped on, with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 blooming from the rubble. Slowly but surely, the phrase “civil rights” began to ring with the echoes of distinguished distance. Now a new book resurrects Birmingham from the veil of four subsequent decades. It lays out the confused battle lines in the city’s industrial past. With the so-called Big Mules of business colluding in country clubs to maintain the segregated status quo.
Author Diane McWhorter writes that she grew up on the wrong side of the fight. And her book unravels the history of her city, and her effort to reveal the alleged villain in her own family, her father.
(Hosted by Alex Beam)
Guests:
Diane McWhorter, author of “Carry Me Home”
Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth, leader of the civil rights movement in Birmingham;
James Parsons, former Chief of Police in Birmingham.