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You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America
Long-listed,
New York Times Book Review
Notable Books of the Year, 2023
This program features a prologue and epilogue read by the author.
From journalist Paul Kix, the riveting story, never before fully told, of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign—ten weeks that would shape the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of America.
It’s one of the iconic photographs of American A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963. In May of 2020, as reporter Paul Kix stared at a different photo–that of a Minneapolis police officer suffocating George Floyd–he kept returning to the other photo taken half a century earlier, haunted by its echoes. What, Kix wondered, was the full legacy of the Birmingham photo? And of the campaign it stemmed from?
In You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live, Paul Kix takes the listener behind the scenes as he tells the story of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s pivotal 10 week campaign in 1963 to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time, he also provides a window into the minds of the four extraordinary men who led the campaign—Martin Luther King, Jr., Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth, and James Bevel.
With captivating prose that sounds like a thriller, Kix’s audiobook is the first to zero in on the ten weeks of Project C, as it was known—its specific history and its echoes sounding throughout our culture now. It’s about Where It All Began, for sure, but it’s also the key to understanding Where We Are Now and Where We Will Be. As the fight for equality continues on many fronts, Project C is crucial to our understanding of our own time and the impact that strategic activism can have.
A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books.
This program features a prologue and epilogue read by the author.
From journalist Paul Kix, the riveting story, never before fully told, of the 1963 Birmingham Campaign—ten weeks that would shape the course of the Civil Rights Movement and the future of America.
It’s one of the iconic photographs of American A Black teenager, a policeman and his lunging German Shepherd. Birmingham, Alabama, May of 1963. In May of 2020, as reporter Paul Kix stared at a different photo–that of a Minneapolis police officer suffocating George Floyd–he kept returning to the other photo taken half a century earlier, haunted by its echoes. What, Kix wondered, was the full legacy of the Birmingham photo? And of the campaign it stemmed from?
In You Have To Be Prepared To Die Before You Can Begin To Live, Paul Kix takes the listener behind the scenes as he tells the story of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s pivotal 10 week campaign in 1963 to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. At the same time, he also provides a window into the minds of the four extraordinary men who led the campaign—Martin Luther King, Jr., Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth, and James Bevel.
With captivating prose that sounds like a thriller, Kix’s audiobook is the first to zero in on the ten weeks of Project C, as it was known—its specific history and its echoes sounding throughout our culture now. It’s about Where It All Began, for sure, but it’s also the key to understanding Where We Are Now and Where We Will Be. As the fight for equality continues on many fronts, Project C is crucial to our understanding of our own time and the impact that strategic activism can have.
A Macmillan Audio production from Celadon Books.
Audible Audio
Published May 2, 2023
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July 1, 2024
Sometimes historical events -- even major ones -- lodge in memory as the equivalent 0f faded pictures and yellowing newsprint. They lack dimension, vitality, substance. I was alive when the Birmingham marches took place but I was young and didn't pay attention. Journalist Paul Kix takes these events that took place a half century ago (!) and presents them with all the depth, drama and immediacy of a suspense novel. “You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live” profoundly challenged my understanding of the recent past and its influence on today’s America.
The book brings it all vividly back to life -- the marches, the segregated bathrooms and entrances, the off-limits pools, and the clear lines about what Black Americans could and couldn't do. The police violence and the many bombings of the 50s and 60s. Some of the names are legendary today — Martin Luther King, Jr., John and Bobby Kennedy, Ralph Abernathy, Harry Belafonte. The “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Others are, regrettably, less known today: James Bevel, Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth (it was he who said the words Kix uses as the title of his book), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). What these people did, what they went through, was nothing less than heroic -- and at the same time profoundly human. Reading about them, one can’t help but feel, as Kix did, “Those guys in the movement had hope long after they should have.”
The book chronicles the ten days of the SCLC’s 1963 campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, widely known back then as “Bombingham” because of all the homes and churches that were the targets of explosive devices. A place where "the police force... had no compunction about abducting and raping Black women, ... that had rewarded officers who’d shot and killed Black men with extra days off for a job well done." Kix writes, “The city had the reputation as the most segregated, most racist, most violent place in America. Murrow [Edward R. Murrow, in Birmingham reporting for CS] came to agree. Just before he left town, he told his producer he hadn’t seen anything like it since Nazi Germany.”
The face of the brutality was Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, a vile racist, friend of the Ku Klux Klan, a “man so openly hateful he was like a comic book villain.” A comic book villain in his racial obsession, perhaps, but one who as Commissioner of Public Safety had enormous power in Birmingham, including over the police.
This was where SCLC wanted to go. The idea was met with shocked disbelief when it was first proposed. A civil rights march by Black Americans in Birmingham was basically a suicide mission. It was crazy. Why, even the Black residents of the city were opposed to the idea, quite reasonably arguing that it would put their lives and jobs in jeopardy. Worse, from their perspective the whole idea was insulting: Did the SCLC really think Black Birminghamians hadn’t themselves fought to integrate? Did the SCLC truly believe it could “integrate a city when a U.S. district court hadn’t been able to integrate its parks, when the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t been able to integrate its schools”?
Yes, they did believe it. Or at least, they believed it had to be done whatever the risk.
Kix details the history of the campaigns. It was a fractious group, filled with distrust, anger, and resentment. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example: some organizers took to dismissively calling him “De Lawd,” as in “De Lawd preached because De Lawd refused to lead people away from the pulpit.” Or worse. Others loathed one another. There were loud arguments, multiple calls to shut the campaign down made by leaders of the campaign, businesspeople, ministers and rabbis in Birmingham itself, and Dr. King’s own father.
Kix talks at length about the political context of the situation: The south’s disregard for Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that said schools had to be integrated. Resistance from John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, whom King learned couldn’t be trusted. And Southern Democrats. And J. Edgar Hoover. (Bobby Kennedy is a fascinating figure in the book. He was far more interested in protecting his brother’s presidency than he was about civil and voting rights. He was, in fact, annoyed that civil rights leaders weren’t more grateful for what the Kennedy Administration had done for them. In the words of deputy U.S. attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach, “Bobby expected to be made an honorary black.” Kix’s account of how Bobby was finally brought around to supporting the movement is quite striking.)
The heart of the book reports on the marches themselves. Time and again we read about disagreements between the campaign leaders. It was to dangerous to continue, some said. Others said yes, it was dangerous, very, but it was necessary. As more than one person said, in order for the campaign to succeed, it had to be done before the eyes of the press, the eyes of the world. Mass demonstrations were needed, they said. And bloody ones at that.
Kix recounts a conversation between MLK and the Rev. John T. Porter, pastor of Birmingham’s Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. King was getting dismayed by the lack of success and the growing disinterest of the press. “We’ve got to get something going,” King said. “And I looked at him,” Porter recalled, “and I really couldn’t believe my ears.” As if civil rights were some entertainment, Porter said, some feature attraction to amuse white reporters. Now it was King’s turn to gaze in astonishment. If we don’t hold the press’s interest, he said, we don’t defeat segregation.
When Black adults in Birmingham refused to step up, the SCLC began mobilizing students. Thousands of young people did show up in what came to be known as the Birmingham Children’s Crusade, usually against the express wishes of their parents. They marched singing “We Shall Overcome” and other movement songs, encouraging one another be brave. Bull Connor and Birmingham’s police met them not with forbearance because of their youth but with violence. With fire hoses shooting water at such high pressure that marchers were knocked off their feet, knocked unconscious. And vicious police dogs (including “a black German shepherd named Nigger”) lunging at protesters, clamping their teeth around the throats of children.
Kix describes one such horrific scene of young people joining the protest 50 at a time: Mass arrests, cops cracking people across the skull—footage showed victims bleeding from their temples—and Bull antagonizing the crowd by hopping in that white tank of his and driving it up and down 16th Street North as more bottles and bricks rained on it. And still the next group of fifty protesters, the hissing water, the screaming children, the freedom songs between the screams, [minister James] Bevel rushing out another fifty, because what was a metaphor of the Black experience in America if not this moment? So many youngsters were arrested that the jails couldn’t hold any more, so Bull Connor sent them to cattle yards. More violence was to come when the Alabama State Police arrived.
And yet the protests continued. All of this was done in front of reporters and press photographers.
(In one moving anecdote, a woman who participated in the march when she was young described how excited she was as she was being driven to jail in a yellow school bus. She had never been allowed on one of the yellow buses before, she said. What's more, she could sit wherever she wanted.)
In time the violence ended and Birmingham — reluctantly — integrated.
“You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live” is a compelling work of history. It is also, for its author, a deeply personal one. Paul Kix is White. His wife and young children are not. Early in the book he talks about watching news footage of the murder of George Floyd and trying to explain to his kids what they were looking at. (“Why do they keep trying to kill us?” his son asks.) Kix bookends this opening with a confession: “My wife, Sonya, and I may hope with a fervency that borders on the vicarious that our three kids will be as brave as the children in Birmingham, marching for what they believe in. But the truth is we have also hoped they never find that courage, because if they stay indoors they’ll stay safe.”
The book brings it all vividly back to life -- the marches, the segregated bathrooms and entrances, the off-limits pools, and the clear lines about what Black Americans could and couldn't do. The police violence and the many bombings of the 50s and 60s. Some of the names are legendary today — Martin Luther King, Jr., John and Bobby Kennedy, Ralph Abernathy, Harry Belafonte. The “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” Others are, regrettably, less known today: James Bevel, Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth (it was he who said the words Kix uses as the title of his book), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). What these people did, what they went through, was nothing less than heroic -- and at the same time profoundly human. Reading about them, one can’t help but feel, as Kix did, “Those guys in the movement had hope long after they should have.”
The book chronicles the ten days of the SCLC’s 1963 campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, widely known back then as “Bombingham” because of all the homes and churches that were the targets of explosive devices. A place where "the police force... had no compunction about abducting and raping Black women, ... that had rewarded officers who’d shot and killed Black men with extra days off for a job well done." Kix writes, “The city had the reputation as the most segregated, most racist, most violent place in America. Murrow [Edward R. Murrow, in Birmingham reporting for CS] came to agree. Just before he left town, he told his producer he hadn’t seen anything like it since Nazi Germany.”
The face of the brutality was Theophilus Eugene "Bull" Connor, a vile racist, friend of the Ku Klux Klan, a “man so openly hateful he was like a comic book villain.” A comic book villain in his racial obsession, perhaps, but one who as Commissioner of Public Safety had enormous power in Birmingham, including over the police.
This was where SCLC wanted to go. The idea was met with shocked disbelief when it was first proposed. A civil rights march by Black Americans in Birmingham was basically a suicide mission. It was crazy. Why, even the Black residents of the city were opposed to the idea, quite reasonably arguing that it would put their lives and jobs in jeopardy. Worse, from their perspective the whole idea was insulting: Did the SCLC really think Black Birminghamians hadn’t themselves fought to integrate? Did the SCLC truly believe it could “integrate a city when a U.S. district court hadn’t been able to integrate its parks, when the U.S. Supreme Court hadn’t been able to integrate its schools”?
Yes, they did believe it. Or at least, they believed it had to be done whatever the risk.
Kix details the history of the campaigns. It was a fractious group, filled with distrust, anger, and resentment. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example: some organizers took to dismissively calling him “De Lawd,” as in “De Lawd preached because De Lawd refused to lead people away from the pulpit.” Or worse. Others loathed one another. There were loud arguments, multiple calls to shut the campaign down made by leaders of the campaign, businesspeople, ministers and rabbis in Birmingham itself, and Dr. King’s own father.
Kix talks at length about the political context of the situation: The south’s disregard for Brown v Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that said schools had to be integrated. Resistance from John F. Kennedy and his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, whom King learned couldn’t be trusted. And Southern Democrats. And J. Edgar Hoover. (Bobby Kennedy is a fascinating figure in the book. He was far more interested in protecting his brother’s presidency than he was about civil and voting rights. He was, in fact, annoyed that civil rights leaders weren’t more grateful for what the Kennedy Administration had done for them. In the words of deputy U.S. attorney general Nicholas Katzenbach, “Bobby expected to be made an honorary black.” Kix’s account of how Bobby was finally brought around to supporting the movement is quite striking.)
The heart of the book reports on the marches themselves. Time and again we read about disagreements between the campaign leaders. It was to dangerous to continue, some said. Others said yes, it was dangerous, very, but it was necessary. As more than one person said, in order for the campaign to succeed, it had to be done before the eyes of the press, the eyes of the world. Mass demonstrations were needed, they said. And bloody ones at that.
Kix recounts a conversation between MLK and the Rev. John T. Porter, pastor of Birmingham’s Sixth Avenue Baptist Church. King was getting dismayed by the lack of success and the growing disinterest of the press. “We’ve got to get something going,” King said. “And I looked at him,” Porter recalled, “and I really couldn’t believe my ears.” As if civil rights were some entertainment, Porter said, some feature attraction to amuse white reporters. Now it was King’s turn to gaze in astonishment. If we don’t hold the press’s interest, he said, we don’t defeat segregation.
When Black adults in Birmingham refused to step up, the SCLC began mobilizing students. Thousands of young people did show up in what came to be known as the Birmingham Children’s Crusade, usually against the express wishes of their parents. They marched singing “We Shall Overcome” and other movement songs, encouraging one another be brave. Bull Connor and Birmingham’s police met them not with forbearance because of their youth but with violence. With fire hoses shooting water at such high pressure that marchers were knocked off their feet, knocked unconscious. And vicious police dogs (including “a black German shepherd named Nigger”) lunging at protesters, clamping their teeth around the throats of children.
Kix describes one such horrific scene of young people joining the protest 50 at a time: Mass arrests, cops cracking people across the skull—footage showed victims bleeding from their temples—and Bull antagonizing the crowd by hopping in that white tank of his and driving it up and down 16th Street North as more bottles and bricks rained on it. And still the next group of fifty protesters, the hissing water, the screaming children, the freedom songs between the screams, [minister James] Bevel rushing out another fifty, because what was a metaphor of the Black experience in America if not this moment? So many youngsters were arrested that the jails couldn’t hold any more, so Bull Connor sent them to cattle yards. More violence was to come when the Alabama State Police arrived.
And yet the protests continued. All of this was done in front of reporters and press photographers.
(In one moving anecdote, a woman who participated in the march when she was young described how excited she was as she was being driven to jail in a yellow school bus. She had never been allowed on one of the yellow buses before, she said. What's more, she could sit wherever she wanted.)
In time the violence ended and Birmingham — reluctantly — integrated.
“You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live” is a compelling work of history. It is also, for its author, a deeply personal one. Paul Kix is White. His wife and young children are not. Early in the book he talks about watching news footage of the murder of George Floyd and trying to explain to his kids what they were looking at. (“Why do they keep trying to kill us?” his son asks.) Kix bookends this opening with a confession: “My wife, Sonya, and I may hope with a fervency that borders on the vicarious that our three kids will be as brave as the children in Birmingham, marching for what they believe in. But the truth is we have also hoped they never find that courage, because if they stay indoors they’ll stay safe.”
April 19, 2023
Journalist Kix takes us through the events in Birmingham, Alabama 60 years ago in 1963, when efforts were being made to desegregate the city. The plan was referred to as Project C; Martin Luther King and his colleagues along with the citizens of Birmingham went up against the brutal Bull Connor, a racist in control of Birmingham and its police department. (Connor was the one who ordered the water cannons and attack dogs on the peaceful protesters, often seen in the iconic pictures and videos.) This book goes through the events chronologically, revealing the personalities of the participants as they planned and revised what to do, and how best to get the news media to report on the situation. Most controversial was the idea to involve children, which many found disturbing, but which definitely captured the public’s attention when shown on the news. Philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.” This is a book that needs to be read: it is well written and researched, and shows what could, and can happen, when a “moral issue” (mentioned by then-president Kennedy in his speech introducing the Civil Rights Act) is allowed to go unaddressed. Thanks to Jaime Noven and the publisher for allowing me to review this advance copy.
May 15, 2023
I was eleven years old, my family preparing to move from my childhood home, my dad’s childhood home. I didn’t read newspapers or watch the news. The worst thing in my life was missing my fifth grade teacher’s wedding that June.
Elsewhere, children my age and a few years older were gathering in solidarity in nonviolent protest in Birmingham, Alabama, a city run by vicious, all-powerful segregationists and white supremists. They faced army tanks and fire hoses and attack dogs. Entire schools emptied. These children knew they would be arrested and jailed. They found the courage to do what their parents, dependent on white employers, could not.
Bobby Kennedy was challenged to consider the protests as a father, not a politician. He realized that legislation was imperative, and pushed his brother Jack.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had decided on Birmingham for their campaign. During a tumultuous ten weeks, the leaders didn’t always agree, and King retreated to the hotel room, waiting and watching.
During his time in the Birmingham jail, he drafted an inspired letter, a manifesto to inspire other ministers to join the movement. Inspired by a series of thinkers, from the Social Gospel to Reinhold Niebuhr to Gandhi, and his Baptist faith, King was a hesitant leader and an eloquent spokesperson who understood that the cross was at his journey’s end.
Day after day, leaders like Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth walked out of the church with forty or so, knowing they would be arrested by the waiting police. But the campaign was fizzling out. They needed thousands of protesters. They needed to force Bull Connor to lash out, to catch the attention of the world.
James Bevel went to the children, taught them nonviolence, inspired them to carry on the fight for equality. It was controversial. And it worked.
I read with a sense of dread, knowing what was to come. The incomprehensible hatred, the courageous determination. I was reading history, and I was reading legacy, and I was reading about a battle that continues today.
This is a moving, immersive history of a pivotal moment in time, vividly portraying the flawed and courageous leaders.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
Elsewhere, children my age and a few years older were gathering in solidarity in nonviolent protest in Birmingham, Alabama, a city run by vicious, all-powerful segregationists and white supremists. They faced army tanks and fire hoses and attack dogs. Entire schools emptied. These children knew they would be arrested and jailed. They found the courage to do what their parents, dependent on white employers, could not.
Bobby Kennedy was challenged to consider the protests as a father, not a politician. He realized that legislation was imperative, and pushed his brother Jack.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference had decided on Birmingham for their campaign. During a tumultuous ten weeks, the leaders didn’t always agree, and King retreated to the hotel room, waiting and watching.
During his time in the Birmingham jail, he drafted an inspired letter, a manifesto to inspire other ministers to join the movement. Inspired by a series of thinkers, from the Social Gospel to Reinhold Niebuhr to Gandhi, and his Baptist faith, King was a hesitant leader and an eloquent spokesperson who understood that the cross was at his journey’s end.
Day after day, leaders like Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth walked out of the church with forty or so, knowing they would be arrested by the waiting police. But the campaign was fizzling out. They needed thousands of protesters. They needed to force Bull Connor to lash out, to catch the attention of the world.
James Bevel went to the children, taught them nonviolence, inspired them to carry on the fight for equality. It was controversial. And it worked.
I read with a sense of dread, knowing what was to come. The incomprehensible hatred, the courageous determination. I was reading history, and I was reading legacy, and I was reading about a battle that continues today.
This is a moving, immersive history of a pivotal moment in time, vividly portraying the flawed and courageous leaders.
Thanks to the publisher for a free book.
April 29, 2023
Earlier this month, April 12th, was the 60th anniversary of the arrest of Martin Luther King Jr. in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. That arrest and the surrounding events changed the course of history and many Americans' lives of the past, present, and future forever.
History has a somewhat understandable tendency to become flattened into a linear narrative. It started here, this happened, then this, and then... success! The important points which fit into a succinct piece of a larger narrative are remembered while other details are shed, especially those bits which ultimately shape American mythology. I find this especially true when it comes to the civil rights movement. It's easy to feel as though the leaders of the day were following some sort of choreographed blueprint, they did the thing, were successful, good vanquished evil, and a whitewashed version of Martin Luther King Jr. was entered into the history books. Amen.
Meanwhile, it was all much more opaque and complex; the challenges, setbacks, and uncertainty, the losses they had to push beyond, the violence they had to endure, the opposition they had to weather from many directions, including within their own community, the doubt with which they had to contend from within themselves. It has taken generations to settle upon what is a generally accepted version of events we can hold up and cheer as progress and that version is a simplified account, undoubtedly.
Enter journalist and author Paul Kix. Inspired by a famous historical photograph and his family's own grappling with the reality of present day racial inequality, he set out to write a definitive history of the Birmingham Campaign.
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America is a work of narrative non-fiction detailing the 1963 direct action campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, a joint effort of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and local leaders. Birmingham in 1963 was considered the most segregated city in America and a location of particular cruelty under the reign of infamous racist Bull Connor.
This is the type of historical account that really brings the past to life in a way which not only informs, but also allows for deeper understanding of a part of history we think we already know. This era of American history is one of particular importance as we presently witness hard fought and won rights being removed and continue reckoning with the still deeply buried and stubbornly enduring roots of our nation's white supremacy.
Well written and researched this a must read to better understand our own past so that we may better navigate and move beyond the challenges of our present.
Thanks to Netgalley and Celadon for the advance review copy.
History has a somewhat understandable tendency to become flattened into a linear narrative. It started here, this happened, then this, and then... success! The important points which fit into a succinct piece of a larger narrative are remembered while other details are shed, especially those bits which ultimately shape American mythology. I find this especially true when it comes to the civil rights movement. It's easy to feel as though the leaders of the day were following some sort of choreographed blueprint, they did the thing, were successful, good vanquished evil, and a whitewashed version of Martin Luther King Jr. was entered into the history books. Amen.
Meanwhile, it was all much more opaque and complex; the challenges, setbacks, and uncertainty, the losses they had to push beyond, the violence they had to endure, the opposition they had to weather from many directions, including within their own community, the doubt with which they had to contend from within themselves. It has taken generations to settle upon what is a generally accepted version of events we can hold up and cheer as progress and that version is a simplified account, undoubtedly.
Enter journalist and author Paul Kix. Inspired by a famous historical photograph and his family's own grappling with the reality of present day racial inequality, he set out to write a definitive history of the Birmingham Campaign.
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live: Ten Weeks in Birmingham That Changed America is a work of narrative non-fiction detailing the 1963 direct action campaign to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, a joint effort of Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and local leaders. Birmingham in 1963 was considered the most segregated city in America and a location of particular cruelty under the reign of infamous racist Bull Connor.
This is the type of historical account that really brings the past to life in a way which not only informs, but also allows for deeper understanding of a part of history we think we already know. This era of American history is one of particular importance as we presently witness hard fought and won rights being removed and continue reckoning with the still deeply buried and stubbornly enduring roots of our nation's white supremacy.
Well written and researched this a must read to better understand our own past so that we may better navigate and move beyond the challenges of our present.
Thanks to Netgalley and Celadon for the advance review copy.
October 13, 2024
You have to be Prepared to Die Before you can begin to Live.
What a title, what a book. I must have been absent the day they taught history in history class, because I had heard about a march in Birmingham, but not like this. The author, Mr. Kix, weaves a compelling narrative describing the event that took place during a ten-week in 1963. What I found interesting is how other individuals were involved besides Dr. King. Such a Bobby Kennedy and JFK. The Kennedys were never much for domestic issues, but the role Bobby Kennedy played in this book was quite surprising to me. It was a revelation actually: “ The United States is dominated by white people, politically and economically. The question is whether we, in this position of dominance, are going to have not the charity but the wisdom to stop penalizing our fellow citizens whose only fault or is that they were born.”
If you want to know more about the city of Birmingham, Alabama and the brutal Bull Connor, a racist who lorded over its police department look no further. This is an outstanding historical account that really brings the past to life in a way which not only informs, but also allows for deeper understanding of MLK the residents of Birmingham and other key plyers that shaped history.
What a title, what a book. I must have been absent the day they taught history in history class, because I had heard about a march in Birmingham, but not like this. The author, Mr. Kix, weaves a compelling narrative describing the event that took place during a ten-week in 1963. What I found interesting is how other individuals were involved besides Dr. King. Such a Bobby Kennedy and JFK. The Kennedys were never much for domestic issues, but the role Bobby Kennedy played in this book was quite surprising to me. It was a revelation actually: “ The United States is dominated by white people, politically and economically. The question is whether we, in this position of dominance, are going to have not the charity but the wisdom to stop penalizing our fellow citizens whose only fault or is that they were born.”
If you want to know more about the city of Birmingham, Alabama and the brutal Bull Connor, a racist who lorded over its police department look no further. This is an outstanding historical account that really brings the past to life in a way which not only informs, but also allows for deeper understanding of MLK the residents of Birmingham and other key plyers that shaped history.
November 21, 2024
This book about the Birmingham campaign in the 1960s civil rights movement has felt particularly helpful in this moment, giving insight into the complexity and moral quandaries and simple unknowingness of movement and social justice work. Looking back everything often feels inevitable, that it was meant to go the way it did, but this book shows how conviction and chaos and hope and chance and intention and willingness to take terrifying risks in the face of the unknown working out is the best we can usually hope for. Because of the messiness, it gave me hope.
Also I learned a lot and the book gave depth and truth to the very real horrors of being Black in Birmingham, the south, and the country - and the intense bravery and fortitude of those willing to challenge the system.
Also I learned a lot and the book gave depth and truth to the very real horrors of being Black in Birmingham, the south, and the country - and the intense bravery and fortitude of those willing to challenge the system.
April 16, 2023
This story spanned the 10-week campaign in 1963 to end segregation in Birmingham Alabama. This story delves deep into the lives of Martin Luther King, Jr. Wyatt Walker, Fred Shuttlesworth and James Bevel. The campaign was known as project C and tied in events of the time and how they have played out in history. This book highlights the effects strategic activism can have and helps gain an understanding of how they work.
This was a tough read. The story read well, and was written more like a fiction novel instead of non-fiction which helped hold my interest in the story. I also went into this one blind, which was tough at times – but also led to a great understanding of what I was reading. I really enjoyed the writing and it gave me plenty to think about. It is always wonderful reading about people who have made such great differences in the lives we take for granted – and for that I am truly thankful. My only downside with this one was that at time it did feel that the author went too deep in the details, and it was long. Had a few things been kept at mentions versus having a full explanation I think I would have enjoyed it more overall. Still an amazing read though.
Thank you so much to @CeladonBooks for sending me this arc copy and allowing me to leave an honest review.
This was a tough read. The story read well, and was written more like a fiction novel instead of non-fiction which helped hold my interest in the story. I also went into this one blind, which was tough at times – but also led to a great understanding of what I was reading. I really enjoyed the writing and it gave me plenty to think about. It is always wonderful reading about people who have made such great differences in the lives we take for granted – and for that I am truly thankful. My only downside with this one was that at time it did feel that the author went too deep in the details, and it was long. Had a few things been kept at mentions versus having a full explanation I think I would have enjoyed it more overall. Still an amazing read though.
Thank you so much to @CeladonBooks for sending me this arc copy and allowing me to leave an honest review.
February 22, 2024
Am I the only one who missed so much in history class?
I’m swinging back and forth between “I haven’t done enough of my own learning since high school” (true) and “wow, this book pulls it all together in the most incredible story format” (also true).
Meet the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement—their fears, their speeches, their alignments and their disagreements, the INCREDIBLE faith it took to pull this off - both in the Lord and in the people around them.
Just wow. Will be talking about (and recommending!!) this book for a long time.
Ps: narrator is amazing. Highly recommend the audio version!
I’m swinging back and forth between “I haven’t done enough of my own learning since high school” (true) and “wow, this book pulls it all together in the most incredible story format” (also true).
Meet the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement—their fears, their speeches, their alignments and their disagreements, the INCREDIBLE faith it took to pull this off - both in the Lord and in the people around them.
Just wow. Will be talking about (and recommending!!) this book for a long time.
Ps: narrator is amazing. Highly recommend the audio version!
May 1, 2023
Double D-Day - a day I honestly don’t ever remember learning about before this book. How is that possible!? How did such an incredible event exist in my country’s history and I knew next to nothing about it. I’m so grateful to Celadon Books for sending me this ARC, on the 60th anniversary of ten weeks that truly changed America.
Yes, I knew about Birmingham and the protests led by Martin Luther King Jr. there. But it was just one of many protests and events I had heard about. The timing, significance and actual details of the events had all passed over me somehow. But after reading this account of what happened, I have a new understanding and respect for what these incredible, brave, and oppressed citizens of our country accomplished.
You always hear about what happened, but you don’t hear about how unlikely success was in the beginning or just how little support there really was. I was shocked to learn that the black community of Birmingham wasn’t really behind the movement in the beginning and how hopeless things seemed for King and the SCLC when they began the campaign.
I also appreciated the detailed look at the other leaders of the SCLC. They were all fascinating men and I enjoyed learning about them. Without their help, insight and determination, the campaign would have likely failed. A scary thought when you think about the advancements in Civil Rights that came about because of this event.
This is truly a must read! It’s so important that we understand this history. Especially if we want to continue moving in the right direction as a nation.
Yes, I knew about Birmingham and the protests led by Martin Luther King Jr. there. But it was just one of many protests and events I had heard about. The timing, significance and actual details of the events had all passed over me somehow. But after reading this account of what happened, I have a new understanding and respect for what these incredible, brave, and oppressed citizens of our country accomplished.
You always hear about what happened, but you don’t hear about how unlikely success was in the beginning or just how little support there really was. I was shocked to learn that the black community of Birmingham wasn’t really behind the movement in the beginning and how hopeless things seemed for King and the SCLC when they began the campaign.
I also appreciated the detailed look at the other leaders of the SCLC. They were all fascinating men and I enjoyed learning about them. Without their help, insight and determination, the campaign would have likely failed. A scary thought when you think about the advancements in Civil Rights that came about because of this event.
This is truly a must read! It’s so important that we understand this history. Especially if we want to continue moving in the right direction as a nation.
May 2, 2023
A deep dive into the 10-week campaign to end segregation in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. Kix attempts to give us an in-depth look at Project C, as it was known and formulated by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
I remember learning the cliff notes version of this time period in school. This book really helps bring so much more to light. It's so important to look back and understand our history, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. It's honest. It's brave. It's complex. It's easy to become horrified by the accounts shared in this volume but I find it a necessary read to continue to move us all in the right direction.
I remember learning the cliff notes version of this time period in school. This book really helps bring so much more to light. It's so important to look back and understand our history, no matter how uncomfortable that may be. It's honest. It's brave. It's complex. It's easy to become horrified by the accounts shared in this volume but I find it a necessary read to continue to move us all in the right direction.
December 27, 2023
I have a habit, when listening to nonfiction audiobooks, to look up the people mentioned. This alleviates the pressure on my brain to imagine what they look like, thereby allowing me to focus more on the story. This usually doesn’t affect my enjoyment (or lack thereof) of the book. But with one glance of the googled James Bevel’s headlines about his conviction for sexually abusing his daughter (only one count could be charged, but he didn’t spare 4 of his other daughters either) - seen while listening to him gathering the children of Birmingham for the Children’s Crusade - well, I couldn’t just let this information slide. Yes, people are composed of good and bad/evil, but sometimes that evil just colors everything else. He was asked to apologize for his crime. “Saying 'I'm sorry' is a game we play. That's a playboy talking to a prostitute," Bevel said on the witness stand shortly before he was sentenced.
I’m glad I read this book. Bevel’s conviction is mentioned in the afterword, as is the truth of the May 2, 1963 photo of a police dog attacking a teenaged boy. And I appreciate this book focusing solely on the weeks surrounding the protest in Birmingham. But that also allows many of the men at the heart of the protest to appear unblemished high up on their (well deserved) pedestal.
So, while I think I would have enjoyed the book more if either a) I hadn’t known of Bevel’s behavior, or b) it was mentioned in the forward, that’s a moot point now. That being said, it’s a part of the story.
The book is well researched and written, and is worth a read.
I’m glad I read this book. Bevel’s conviction is mentioned in the afterword, as is the truth of the May 2, 1963 photo of a police dog attacking a teenaged boy. And I appreciate this book focusing solely on the weeks surrounding the protest in Birmingham. But that also allows many of the men at the heart of the protest to appear unblemished high up on their (well deserved) pedestal.
So, while I think I would have enjoyed the book more if either a) I hadn’t known of Bevel’s behavior, or b) it was mentioned in the forward, that’s a moot point now. That being said, it’s a part of the story.
The book is well researched and written, and is worth a read.
November 26, 2023
An unputdownable read that is both informative and important. This is a must read for everyone and is captivating from the very first page unlike some nonfiction books can be.
Thank you to Celadon Books for the free copy to review.
Thank you to Celadon Books for the free copy to review.
April 25, 2024
This book fascinated me on every level - an incredible and important story. 5+
May 9, 2024
Birmingham in 1963. Such powerful documentation of the fight for racial integration, racial equality—how far we have come HOWEVER FAR WE NEED YET TO TRAVEL!
April 22, 2023
Paul Kix’s You Have to be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live is a mouthful of a title, but it perfectly captures the feeling of the book. The title is derived from a statement made by one of the leaders of the movement to desegregate Birmingham, Alabama, a hotbed of racism and violence. The book reads like a novel, with people at odds but with a common purpose against those who hate them purely for the color of their skin. It ponders the ways to get the press, and subsequently the presidency and the public to see the inequality and injustice. It reaches the fever pitch of the marches and movement in Birmingham and the horrors that ensued, followed by the hope for progress and change. But this is not a novel. This is our history, told superbly by Kix, that is both shameful and inspiring. Focusing purely on the events of Birmingham keeps the book from becoming overwhelming or introducing too many players. And yet it is also enough to show the constant challenges Black leadership faced and the somewhat conflicting role that Martin Luther King played in the Civil Rights movement. King is undoubtedly a brilliant, charismatic man that drew attention and respect, willing to make sacrifices of himself and his family. But this could also disenfranchise the people leading movements in communities that he took on as initiatives for change. Fred Shuttlesworth, flawed as he was, experienced this in his hometown of Birmingham. He could receive the public attention for decisions that weren’t his, like what happened with Bevel and the Black children in Birmingham. This book shows how difficult it was (and still can be) to force change, and how often, though it may be one man (or person) that stands as figurehead of a movement, there are many more people behind them willing to not always receive the credit if progress is made. Be horrified by the accounts of this book. Be inspired by the accomplishments of the Black people fighting for equality. And last but not least, be impressed by how Kix tells an engaging and emotional tale of an ugly time in our history that you won’t want to put down. A complimentary copy of this book was provided by the publisher. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
August 26, 2025
4.75 stars
August 4, 2023
Such an important read! This book walks you through every detail of the civil rights campaign in Birmingham. It is no boring history book; it’s riveting. The only downside was that it was a little too long.
July 19, 2023
Blown away. This is essential reading for any American.
April 29, 2023
I really enjoyed this book. I devoured it in a little over a day. I just couldn't turn it off. I've lived in Alabama my whole life, and I've heard the stories about the struggle for Birmingham Civil Rights for as long as I remember. But even so, there were things in this book that I've never been told. For example, I had no idea how heavily the movement relied on children. I knew children were a PART of the movement, but I didn't realize how much of the backbone they really were. I also didn't know about King's struggle to make some of the decisions that he made as a leader.
Overall, I found this book engrossingly informative - it shed new light on the Birmingham Race Struggle that really opened my eyes. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history, the Civil Rights Movement, Alabama history, etc.
Brilliantly written, and highly relatable - even to someone like me on the white side of the fence.
Overall, I found this book engrossingly informative - it shed new light on the Birmingham Race Struggle that really opened my eyes. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in history, the Civil Rights Movement, Alabama history, etc.
Brilliantly written, and highly relatable - even to someone like me on the white side of the fence.
October 26, 2024
This book is essential for getting at the truth of the details needed for understanding the how of this important historical event.
The story overall is very messy because that's real life. It's hard to write a formula for social progress because everything is so specific to the people, time and place.
The author has another book about the French Resistance. I am currious to read that and see if there are some common elements.
The story overall is very messy because that's real life. It's hard to write a formula for social progress because everything is so specific to the people, time and place.
The author has another book about the French Resistance. I am currious to read that and see if there are some common elements.
June 28, 2024
DNF
It is very rare that I do not finish a book I start but I just could not get through this one and it surprises me because I enjoy history and this is history I lived through and remember watching on tv.
Disappointed.
It is very rare that I do not finish a book I start but I just could not get through this one and it surprises me because I enjoy history and this is history I lived through and remember watching on tv.
Disappointed.
July 24, 2023
You Have to Be Prepared is a stunning look at 10 weeks in the Birmingham Alabama civil rights protest and the profound consequences it had for America. With this book, Kix has elevated awareness of a pivotal moment in American history even as our nation continues to grapple with continued institutional racism and upheaval in the wake of George Floyd's death at the hands of Police Officer Derek Chauvin.
Kix writes from a unique perspective. White and married to a Black woman, his marriage and the birth of his children would have been nearly impossible in pre-1960s Birmingham. That he was able to marry the woman he fell in love with is a positive consequence of the civil rights movement. And yet, he fears for his children in a world in which being Black and being careful could still lead to death at the hands of police officers.
The circumstances of his life are an important back drop to this story - it tells us how far we have come and yet, how much further we need to go. This is an exceptionally illuminating book. I was only three when the Birmingham protests occurred. I later learned of them from my parents who were civil rights advocates (and occasional protestors) but knew very little of the circumstances behind the protest or the leaders (other than Martin Luther King, Jr.). For me that is the great value of this story. To learn about people like Fred Shuttlesworth, Wyatt Walker, and James Bevel who played such a crucial role in the success of the protest, but who I knew so very little about. These men and many others were heroes who most White Americans knew little about.
Kix's reporting of the Birmingham protest is both detailed and unsparing which makes the book so powerful. It's easy to see Martin Luther King or Jack and Bobby Kennedy (particularly in light of their own deaths by assassins) as idyllic leaders, courageous advocates for justice, almost saint-like. But King could be indecisive and had deep doubts about some of the tactics used in the protest and in fact, it was Bevel (arguably the most radical of the protest leaders) that pushed the tactics that ultimately led to success (including putting children on the front lines of the marches in the face of dogs, water cannons and billy clubs). King was a brilliant leader and moral influence, but he was human like all of us and reading about his indecisiveness and his inclination to put his work ahead of his family does not detract from his achievements, but reminds us that, even flawed, human beings are capable of great moral courage.
The book is not kind to either Jack or Bobby Kennedy who are portrayed (at least at the outset) as relatively indifferent to the civil rights movement; far more interested in their own political fortunes than the lives of Blacks in the South. But here too, Kix shows us that perhaps the most important attribute of great leaders is that they overcome their own flaws and weaknesses. After a confrontation with Black leaders in Harry Belafonte's apartment in NYC, Bobby became introspective about the nature of the Black rights and what could and must be done to improve civil rights for all. Ultimately, this book implies, the Birmingham protests changed Bobby Kennedy (and Jack too) in ways that made them stronger advocates for rights.
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live (a quote from Fred Shuttlesworth) is a profoundly moving and deeply researched history of an important turning point in American Civil Rights. It will teach readers much about the Jim Crow South and hold a mirror up to our current society where rights are still not fully protected, or equality fully achieved.
Kix ends the book with revelations of what happened in the wake of Birmingham noting that "Progress - drawn by an author, an activist, or an elected official - is never quite what it seems, though. The line skews off course. The images that portray advancement deceive." He says this not just for the lack of ultimate progress in civil rights to this day, but also because even the most iconic photographs of the era (one of which begins the book) do not always tell the back story of what happened accurately. We should be careful not to over-idolize either events or people, Kix suggests.
Ultimately, Kix ends the book with deep revelations about what all of this means for a white man with Black children and his thoughts may not be exactly what you expect. "Skin-deep identities have become the nation's obsession", he says. "This fixation is as endless as it is exhausting, and our wish is to move beyond it all. Move beyond the culture that spews the racist tropes of alt-right forums and the mindset that fosters 'safe spaces' at progressive colleges, where Black students have been encouraged to sit at a remove from white students in the cafeteria and white students have been encouraged not to question the policy. None of that is the future I want for my children. One where progress looks a lot like regression, where skin color is all we are trained to see and where segregation is its inevitable result. Better societies build themselves from a foundation of empathy."
Kix's brilliant writing and personal perspective makes this a fantastic and important read. I strongly recommend it.
Kix writes from a unique perspective. White and married to a Black woman, his marriage and the birth of his children would have been nearly impossible in pre-1960s Birmingham. That he was able to marry the woman he fell in love with is a positive consequence of the civil rights movement. And yet, he fears for his children in a world in which being Black and being careful could still lead to death at the hands of police officers.
The circumstances of his life are an important back drop to this story - it tells us how far we have come and yet, how much further we need to go. This is an exceptionally illuminating book. I was only three when the Birmingham protests occurred. I later learned of them from my parents who were civil rights advocates (and occasional protestors) but knew very little of the circumstances behind the protest or the leaders (other than Martin Luther King, Jr.). For me that is the great value of this story. To learn about people like Fred Shuttlesworth, Wyatt Walker, and James Bevel who played such a crucial role in the success of the protest, but who I knew so very little about. These men and many others were heroes who most White Americans knew little about.
Kix's reporting of the Birmingham protest is both detailed and unsparing which makes the book so powerful. It's easy to see Martin Luther King or Jack and Bobby Kennedy (particularly in light of their own deaths by assassins) as idyllic leaders, courageous advocates for justice, almost saint-like. But King could be indecisive and had deep doubts about some of the tactics used in the protest and in fact, it was Bevel (arguably the most radical of the protest leaders) that pushed the tactics that ultimately led to success (including putting children on the front lines of the marches in the face of dogs, water cannons and billy clubs). King was a brilliant leader and moral influence, but he was human like all of us and reading about his indecisiveness and his inclination to put his work ahead of his family does not detract from his achievements, but reminds us that, even flawed, human beings are capable of great moral courage.
The book is not kind to either Jack or Bobby Kennedy who are portrayed (at least at the outset) as relatively indifferent to the civil rights movement; far more interested in their own political fortunes than the lives of Blacks in the South. But here too, Kix shows us that perhaps the most important attribute of great leaders is that they overcome their own flaws and weaknesses. After a confrontation with Black leaders in Harry Belafonte's apartment in NYC, Bobby became introspective about the nature of the Black rights and what could and must be done to improve civil rights for all. Ultimately, this book implies, the Birmingham protests changed Bobby Kennedy (and Jack too) in ways that made them stronger advocates for rights.
You Have to Be Prepared to Die Before You Can Begin to Live (a quote from Fred Shuttlesworth) is a profoundly moving and deeply researched history of an important turning point in American Civil Rights. It will teach readers much about the Jim Crow South and hold a mirror up to our current society where rights are still not fully protected, or equality fully achieved.
Kix ends the book with revelations of what happened in the wake of Birmingham noting that "Progress - drawn by an author, an activist, or an elected official - is never quite what it seems, though. The line skews off course. The images that portray advancement deceive." He says this not just for the lack of ultimate progress in civil rights to this day, but also because even the most iconic photographs of the era (one of which begins the book) do not always tell the back story of what happened accurately. We should be careful not to over-idolize either events or people, Kix suggests.
Ultimately, Kix ends the book with deep revelations about what all of this means for a white man with Black children and his thoughts may not be exactly what you expect. "Skin-deep identities have become the nation's obsession", he says. "This fixation is as endless as it is exhausting, and our wish is to move beyond it all. Move beyond the culture that spews the racist tropes of alt-right forums and the mindset that fosters 'safe spaces' at progressive colleges, where Black students have been encouraged to sit at a remove from white students in the cafeteria and white students have been encouraged not to question the policy. None of that is the future I want for my children. One where progress looks a lot like regression, where skin color is all we are trained to see and where segregation is its inevitable result. Better societies build themselves from a foundation of empathy."
Kix's brilliant writing and personal perspective makes this a fantastic and important read. I strongly recommend it.
July 27, 2024
This blew me away. I’m no stranger to the history here—especially after living 90 minutes from Birmingham for 5 years during which time I studied and read a great deal about what seemed to this west coast native a completely foreign country—but reading Kix’s presentation here was incredibly powerful. I learned a ton, reflected even more, and the section on the Birmingham Children’s Crusade brought me to tears.
The events here took place 15 years before I was born. If I think 15 years into the past from my current moment (2024), I’m living in New Mexico and pregnant with my second child, who will be going into 8th grade this fall. We just had dear friends from New Mexico visit last week for Sunday lunch.
What I’m trying to say in my roundabout way is that while the events of 1963 may sound ancient, but they’re generationally very, very close. We’re still processing that generational trauma as a society in America, and while we’re not always getting it right, I like to think we are at least trying.
The events here took place 15 years before I was born. If I think 15 years into the past from my current moment (2024), I’m living in New Mexico and pregnant with my second child, who will be going into 8th grade this fall. We just had dear friends from New Mexico visit last week for Sunday lunch.
What I’m trying to say in my roundabout way is that while the events of 1963 may sound ancient, but they’re generationally very, very close. We’re still processing that generational trauma as a society in America, and while we’re not always getting it right, I like to think we are at least trying.
October 2, 2023
This was an excellent dissection of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham from both inside and outside the movement. It does a great job with the better known figures (especially breaking down King's letter from a Birmingham jail: which should be required reading for anyone who uses the "content of their character" quote out of context like that is the whole of his thinking) and the less common names. The strategies and rationales are expertly broken down.
Some of the most powerful parts are when he points out the complicity of the followers. Bull Connor is a grotesque villain, but what about the white men who turned on and held the fire house? What about the white people who stayed silent because they did not want to buck a system that favored them?
Some of the most powerful parts are when he points out the complicity of the followers. Bull Connor is a grotesque villain, but what about the white men who turned on and held the fire house? What about the white people who stayed silent because they did not want to buck a system that favored them?
July 21, 2024
An excellent recounting of the 10 weeks involved in the civil rights struggle in Birmingham, Alabama. I read the new biography of King last year and thought I knew a fair amount about this time period, but Kix accessed so much newly discovered information that it felt like a revelation to me.
The participants come alive in this book like never before, with all of their courage, determination and flaws. The chapter that got to me the most was entitled"Double DDay". I could not hold back the tears as I read about the children that took up the cause and how they suffered for it and ultimately triumphed. It is not an easy read and at times I just had to put the book down, but it is integral to understanding the civil rights movement.
Highly recommend!!
The participants come alive in this book like never before, with all of their courage, determination and flaws. The chapter that got to me the most was entitled"Double DDay". I could not hold back the tears as I read about the children that took up the cause and how they suffered for it and ultimately triumphed. It is not an easy read and at times I just had to put the book down, but it is integral to understanding the civil rights movement.
Highly recommend!!
August 15, 2025
An incredibly powerful book that I am so glad to have read! It's so interesting and inspirational to see how God and faith in Him intertwines throughout Christian civil rights leaders, like King and other major players. Makes it that much more disheartening to see how some current Christian leaders are trying to lead churches back in time, claiming it's God's will and plan. An incredibly well-written and enlightening read and one I'd love to have on my shelves.
This book is one of the few nonfiction books I've read that engages as well as a fiction story. It takes these events and breathes life into them - I couldn't wait to keep reading and finish my "story". Truly a fantastic work of nonfiction.
This book is one of the few nonfiction books I've read that engages as well as a fiction story. It takes these events and breathes life into them - I couldn't wait to keep reading and finish my "story". Truly a fantastic work of nonfiction.
November 28, 2025
Listened to the audio version of this over the past several months (so not sure it really counts). I really enjoyed this book and how it presented a story I knew bits and pieces of in a more complete way. The narrator was also excellent.
January 1, 2024
Absolutely brilliantly written. Best book I read all year!
January 1, 2024
Why don't we learn this in school? Because it is disgusting how humans can behave to other humans. I am so glad to know about the history of this incredible time n the Civil Rights movement.
January 25, 2024
Thrilling and unputdownable
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