Good afternoon:
I am finishing a book by Diane McWhorter called “Carry Me Home” a very detailed (too much at times)profoundly disturbing account of the civil rights strife in the 60’s, particularly in Birmingham. McWhorter was/is a native of Birmingham and had very contrary opinions from the great majority of her fellow Birminghamians (?). They say, and rightly so, that the American Civil War divided brothers from brothers,fathers from sons, and so on. It did not stop there.
In 1963, a (white) man named William Moore, admittedly a young man with some mental issues, decided to complete an aborted march (previous police arrests) from Chattanooga to Jackson, Mississippi. To Mr. Moore’s credit, he realized his drawbacks, but said that reality was too brutal for him to live in, and he preferred to live in his world instead. A few hours from the onset of his March, Mr. Moore had two bullet holes in his head.
A few weeks later, other people had taken on his cause, among them a young man named Bob Zellner, a (white) field secretary for SNCC. As he approached the Alabama border (it was a 70 mile trek), he received a telegram from his mother in Mobile: “ In the unlikely event that George (Wallace) allows you to walk through Alabama, please drop out in Birmingham as your grandfather and uncle will kill you.” They were both Klansmen on his father’s side.
Vince Pagano
Head of School
