Description: In September 1956, Clinton High School in Clinton, Tennessee became the first school in the former Confederacy to undergo court-mandated desegregation following the Brown v. Board of Education decision. Rachel Martin weaves together over a dozen perspectives in a kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a tumultuous turning point for America.
Brief description: Rachel Louise Martin, PhD, is a historian and writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic and Oxford American, among other publications. The author of Hot, Hot Chicken, a cultural history of Nashville hot chicken, and A Most Tolerant Little Town, the forgotten story of the first school to attempt court-mandated desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board, she is especially interested by the politics of memory and the power of stories to illuminate why injustice persists in America today. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Review Quotes:
"A meticulous, day-by-day reconstruction of relentless bigotry in action."
-- "New York Times"