The Ballad of Little River: A Tale of Race and Restless Youth in the Rural South

by Paul Hemphill

A veteran Southern journalist journeys into the heart of rural Alabama to reveal why the small town of Little River erupted into a series of violent racial incidents in 1997, including the murder of a young black man, an attack on the white owner of a local general store, and the burning of two black churches by five white teenagers.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History

235 pages, Hardcover

First published May 24, 2000

About the author

Paul James Hemphill was an American journalist and author who wrote extensively about often-overlooked topics in the Southern United States such as country music, evangelism, football, stock car racing and the blue collar people he met on his journeys around the South.

Reviews

[Meegan McCorkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was going to be a book that helped me understand why there was a wave of African American church burnings in the 1990s. Really, it focuses on one incident in Little River, Alabama. When one African American church is destroyed and another is damaged by white teenagers after a night of partying, Hemphill lays out a number of possible causes and leaves it to the reader to decide whether it was a hate crime. Most of the kids came from poor broken homes with few prospects for the future and they felt stifled by small town life. On the other hand, the Ku Klux Klan had recently held a rally in the area, and Hemphill is clearly skeptical of the claim that "we're all poor down here so no one really cares about black and white." Plus, most of the African American teens from Little River seem to move on to successful lives. With Hemphill's anecdotal style, it was easy to put the book down (I didn't race through,) but the writing is strong and I think it's an important topic.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was pretty good, very well written indeed. I have to say, though, the author told us more about the personalities involved and more about the local flavor than about the crimes themselves. Maybe because there were so many other, juicier crimes going on all around. This book is more about a Town That Time Forgot than about The Churches That Burned.

[Wendy]

Mentioned in The Mockingbird Next Door