Carry Me Home Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution

Now with a new afterword, the Pulitzer Prize-winning 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 a cataclysmic turning point in America's long civil rights struggle. Child demonstrators faced down police dogs and fire hoses in huge nonviolent marches against segregation. Ku Klux Klansmen retaliated by bombing the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, killing four young black girls. Diane McWhorter, daughter of a prominent Birmingham family, weaves together police and FBI records, archival documents, interviews with black activists and Klansmen, and personal memories into an extraordinary narrative of the personalities and events that brought about America's second emancipation. In a new afterwordreporting last encounters with hero Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and describing the current drastic anti-immigration laws in Alabamathe author demonstrates that Alabama remains a civil rights crucible.

Diane McWhorter is a long-time contributor to The New York Times and the op-ed page of USA TODAY, among other national publications. Her young adult history of the civil rights movement is A Dream of Freedom. She is originally from Birmingham, Alabama, and now lives in New York City.

Contents

Preface

Introduction: September 15, 1963

Part I: Precedents, 1938-1959

1. The City of Perpetual Promise: 1938
   
2. Ring Out the Old: 1948
   
3. Mass Movements: 1954-1956
   
4. Rehearsal: 1956-1959
   

Part II: Movement, 1960-1962

5. Breaking Out
   
6. Action
   
7. Freedom Ride
   
8. Pivot
   
9. The Full Cast
   
10. Progress
    

Part III: The Year of Birmingham, 1963

11. New Day Dawns
    
12. Mad Dogs and Responsible Negroes
    
13. Baptism
    
14. Two Mayors and a King
    
15. D-Day
    
16. Miracle
    
17. Mayday
    
18. The Threshold
    
19. Edge of Heaven
    
20. No More Water
    
21. The Schoolhouse Door
    
22. The End of Segregation
    
23. The Beginning of Integration
    
24. All the Governor's Men
    
25. A Case of Dynamite
    
26. The Eve
    
27. Denise, Carole, Cynthia, and Addie
    
28. Aftershocks
    
29. BAPBOMB
    
30. General Lee's Namesakes
    

Epilogue

Abbreviations Used in Source Notes

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Acknowledgments

Index