But for Birmingham

But for Birmingham

Author: Glenn T. Eskew

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2000-11-09

Total Pages: 454

ISBN-13: 0807861324

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Birmingham served as the stage for some of the most dramatic and important moments in the history of the civil rights struggle. In this vivid narrative account, Glenn Eskew traces the evolution of nonviolent protest in the city, focusing particularly on the sometimes problematic intersection of the local and national movements. Eskew describes the changing face of Birmingham's civil rights campaign, from the politics of accommodation practiced by the city's black bourgeoisie in the 1950s to local pastor Fred L. Shuttlesworth's groundbreaking use of nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In 1963, the national movement, in the person of Martin Luther King Jr., turned to Birmingham. The national uproar that followed on Police Commissioner Bull Connor's use of dogs and fire hoses against the demonstrators provided the impetus behind passage of the watershed Civil Rights Act of 1964. Paradoxically, though, the larger victory won in the streets of Birmingham did little for many of the city's black citizens, argues Eskew. The cancellation of protest marches before any clear-cut gains had been made left Shuttlesworth feeling betrayed even as King claimed a personal victory. While African Americans were admitted to the leadership of the city, the way power was exercised--and for whom--remained fundamentally unchanged.


Leaving Birmingham

Leaving Birmingham

Author: Paul Hemphill

Publisher: University Alabama Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780817310226

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In 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, was the site of cataclysmic racial violence: Police commissioner "Bull" Connor attacked black demonstrators with dogs and water cannons, Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote his famous letter from the Birmingham jail, and four black children were killed in a church bombing. This incendiary period in Birmingham's history is the centerpiece of an intense and affecting memoir. A disaffected Birmingham native, Paul Hemphill decides to live in his hometown once again, to capture the events and essence of that summer and explore the depth of social change in Birmingham in the years since -- even as he tries to come to terms with his family, and with himself. -- back cover.


The Most Dangerous Book

The Most Dangerous Book

Author: Kevin Birmingham

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2015-05-26

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13: 0143127543

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Recipient of the 2015 PEN New England Award for Nonfiction “The arrival of a significant young nonfiction writer . . . A measured yet bravura performance.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times James Joyce’s big blue book, Ulysses, ushered in the modernist era and changed the novel for all time. But the genius of Ulysses was also its danger: it omitted absolutely nothing. Joyce, along with some of the most important publishers and writers of his era, had to fight for years to win the freedom to publish it. The Most Dangerous Book tells the remarkable story surrounding Ulysses, from the first stirrings of Joyce’s inspiration in 1904 to the book’s landmark federal obscenity trial in 1933. Written for ardent Joyceans as well as novices who want to get to the heart of the greatest novel of the twentieth century, The Most Dangerous Book is a gripping examination of how the world came to say Yes to Ulysses.


The Book of Birmingham

The Book of Birmingham

Author: Kit de Waal

Publisher: Comma Press

Published: 2018-09-27

Total Pages: 144

ISBN-13: 1912697165

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Few cities have undergone such a radical transformation over the last few decades as Birmingham. Culturally and architecturally, it has been in a state of perpetual flux and regeneration, with new communities moving in, then out, and iconic post-war landmarks making way for brighter-coloured, 21st century flourishes. Much like the city itself, the characters in the stories gathered here are often living through moments of profound change, closing in on a personal or societal turning point, that carries as much threat as it does promise. Set against key moments of history – from Malcolm X’s visit to Smethwick in 1965, to the Handsworth riots two decades later, from the demise of the city’s manufacturing in the 70s and 80s, to the on-going tensions between communities in recent years – these stories celebrate the cultural dynamism that makes this complex, often divided ‘second city’ far more than just the sum of its parts.


The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963

Author: Christopher Paul Curtis

Publisher: Yearling

Published: 2013-08-06

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0385382952

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Celebrate the 25th anniversary of this Newbery and Coretta Scott King Honoree about a hilarious family on a road-trip at one of the most important times in America's history. This special edition makes a perfect gift and includes bonus content! Enter the hilarious world of ten-year-old Kenny and his family, the Weird Watsons of Flint, Michigan. There's Momma, Dad, little sister Joetta, and brother Byron, who's thirteen and an "official juvenile delinquent." When Byron gets to be too much trouble, they head South to Birmingham to visit Grandma, the one person who can shape him up. And they'll be in Birmingham during one of the darkest moments in America's history. "Every so often a book becomes a modern classic almost as soon as it arrives on bookshelves. That happened in the mid-'90s when Christopher Paul Curtis released his first book, The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963." --NPR "One of the best novels EVER." --Jacqueline Woodson, Newbery Honor and National Book Award–winning author of Brown Girl Dreaming


The Gangs of Birmingham

The Gangs of Birmingham

Author: Philip Gooderson

Publisher: Milo Books Ltd

Published:

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13:

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In the early 1870s, the boomtown of Birmingham erupted in a series of vicious gang wars. Mobs of youths armed with stones, knives and belt buckles fought pitched battles in a struggle for territorial supremacy. Known as "sloggers", they drew their numbers from the workshops and factories that made guns, nails and jewellery, and lived cheek-by-jowl in overcrowded, insanitary slums. Author Philip Gooderson traces the history of these warring factions from their first appearance in the Cheapside area to the later rise of the "peaky blinders", new gangs named for their peaked caps and long fringes. He describes for the first time the brutal antics of once-infamous fighters such as the Simpson and Harper brothers and the police killer George "Cloggy" Williams, and explains the eventual demise of the gangs at the turn of the century. The Gangs of Birmingham brings to vivid life a forgotten chapter in the history of British gangland.


Renewing Birmingham

Renewing Birmingham

Author: Christopher MacGregor Scribner

Publisher: University of Georgia Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 9780820323282

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Renewing Birmingham is the first book-length study of how federal funding helped transform a twentieth-century southern city. Christopher MacGregor Scribner shows that such funding not only aided Birmingham's transition from an industrial to a service economy but also led to redrawn avenues of power, influence, and justice in the city. By the 1960s Alabama's largest city faced wrenching changes brought on by economic decline, suburbanization, and racial tension. Decades in the making, these problems pitted old-guard politicians, manufacturing elites, and working-class whites against an alternative vision, kindled by federal dollars, of Birmingham's future. Scribner uses the Birmingham experience to trace the evolution of federal grants from extensions of Depression-era fiscal policy to instruments of social change. As he discusses federal backing of projects ranging from low-income housing to the University of Alabama Medical College, Scribner also shows how control of the grant purse, which once belonged exclusively to politicians, came to be shared with bureaucrats and activists, local and federal participants, and blacks and whites. Most important in Birmingham's case, debates over spending drew in entrepreneurs in fields as diverse as biomedicine and education, real estate and construction. This complicated bargaining and coalition-building sparked a "quiet revolution" that had begun hollowing out the core of Birmingham's old order even as civil rights protests cemented the city's segregationist reputation. Scribner stresses that the social benefits of Birmingham's economic rebirth reflected not so much a change of heart for the city as an admission that segregation was simply bad for business. As a new Birmingham ascended--and became less distinguishable from other American cities--aspects of its racist, elitist past persisted. In learning the particulars of Birmingham we come closer to understanding how the South can be at odds with the rest of the country even as it participates in national trends.