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A Most Tolerant Little Town
The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation in America
2 of 2 copies available
In graduate school, Rachel Martin was sent to a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to attempt court mandated desegregation.
But not everyone wanted to talk. As one founder of the Tennessee White Youth told her, "Honey, there was a lot of ugliness down at the school that year; best we just move on and forget it."
For years, Martin wondered what it was some white residents of Clinton didn't want remembered. So, she went back, eventually interviewing over sixty townsfolk—including nearly a dozen of the first students to desegregate Clinton High—to piece together what happened back in 1956: the death threats and beatings, picket lines and cross burnings, neighbors turned on neighbors and preachers for the first time at a loss for words. The National Guard rushed to town, along with national journalists like Edward R. Morrow and even evangelist Billy Graham. But that wasn't the most explosive secret Martin learned...
In A Most Tolerant Little Town, Rachel Martin weaves together over a dozen perspectives in an intimate, kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a turbulent turning point for America. The result is at once a "gripping" (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) mystery and a moving piece of forgotten civil rights history, rendered "with precision, lucidity and, most of all, a heart inured to false hope" (The New York Times).
You may never before have heard of Clinton, Tennessee—but you won't be forgetting the town anytime soon.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
June 13, 2023 -
Formats
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OverDrive Listen audiobook
- ISBN: 9781797159089
- File size: 288066 KB
- Duration: 10:00:08
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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May 1, 2023
Historian Martin (Hot, Hot Chicken) paints a compassionate and nuanced portrait of the Black community of Freedman’s Hill in Clinton, Tenn., and its struggles to achieve equality following the passage of Brown v. Board of Education. In August 1956, “twelve Black students braved mobs and beatings” to attend Clinton High after the NAACP won a six-year court battle to desegregate the school. Previously, Martin explains, the school board had “systematically underfunded Black education,” expecting Freedman’s Hill Black high school students to travel 25 miles away to attend “failing” LaFollette Colored High. Clinton High principal D.J. Brittain Jr. hoped that keeping the races apart during after-school activities would satisfy white families, but a segregationist group called for his resignation, leading to protests and violence. In October, someone planted 100 sticks of dynamite in Clinton High and blew it up. Though the FBI suspected the Ku Kux Klan for this and subsequent arsons in town, no arrests were made. Telling the story in flashbacks and vignettes, Martin, who collected oral histories for 18 years, strikes an expert balance between the big picture and intimate profiles of the families involved. The result is a vivid snapshot of the civil rights–era South. -
Janina Edwards and Megan Tusing share the narration of this audiobook about an almost forgotten uprising over desegregation. In 1956, the town of Clinton, Tennessee, became one of the first schools to combine both Black and white students. What followed was a brutal series of death threats, beatings, cross burnings, and even the presence of the National Guard. Edwards and Tusing deftly deliver the often emotionally charged testimonies and heartrending details from both Black and white residents of Clinton. With their thoughtful performances, Edwards and Tusing capture the fear and confusion, along with the desire of the townspeople to hide what happened. V.B. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine -
Starred review from June 10, 2024
Nashville-based historian Martin (Hot, Hot Chicken) first encountered the story of Clinton High School's 1956 desegregation while working on an oral history project in 2005. Nearly two decades later, this masterful work of collective memory will stun listeners with its recounting of a town brought nearly to its knees by prejudice and the courageous young people who demanded an equal education. Janina Edwards and Megan Tusing narrate as a perfectly paired duo, alternating chapters between the recollections of Clinton, Tennessee's, Black and white residents. As Martin's recounting of that troubled first school year progresses, Edwards embodies the determination, hope, and fear of the dozen Black students chosen to attend previously all-white Clinton High. Her clear resonance accentuates both their sense of purpose and their growing knowledge of what this attempt might cost them both physically and emotionally. Tusing's narration captures the complexity of the white residents' response to the challenging of what they considered a God-given supremacy, from the law-and-order folks to the radical segregationists who would rather burn everything down than share it with those they called inferior. VERDICT Highly recommended for anyone wanting a moving glimpse beyond the better known stories of the civil rights era.--Natalie Marshall
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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