Description:
Dear Denise is a poignant and heartfelt collection of letters from Lisa McNair to her sister Denise, who was tragically killed in the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. Through forty deeply personal reflections, McNair explores family, identity, and resilience, offering an intimate portrait of life lived in the shadow of loss and the enduring power of love and remembrance.
Review Quotes:
"Lisa bares her heart and soul about growing up with love and admiration in the light, not the shadow, of her sister Denise, whose young life was taken from her family by hate through the 1963 bombing of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church. What an extraordinary expression of love and developmental bond to a sister who she never had the pleasure of meeting. She speaks truth to power, bridging the past and present and exploring her inner strength to combat racism from all members of society." --Reena Evers-Everette, executive director of the Medgar and Myrlie Evers Institute
"In Dear Denise, Lisa McNair takes the reader on a journey that at some point in our lives we all wish we could have: a conversation with a family member we never knew. In writing her letters to a sister who died in what should have been a safe place--her church--at the hands of white supremacists, Lisa in actuality has a conversation with Denise, walking the reader through the history of Birmingham and America, and her family, while continuing to seek the truths about our past and the direction for our future. It is conversations like these that will help us form that more perfect union we know as America." --Senator Doug Jones, author of Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing that Changed the Course of Civil Rights