Jim Auchmutey's Blog, page 5

Please wait for the boom mic ...

I've been to many book events at the Margaret Mitchell House over the years, but never as the guy on the stage. So I was excited when the Atlanta History Center, which owns and runs the house, asked me to speak about "The Class of '65." And I was doubly excited when I heard that C-SPAN was going to be there taping for its weekend "Book TV" feature. The picture above (taken by my friend Reid Laurens) shows their camera set up before the program started. They really do want audience members to wait until the boom mic gets there before they ask a question. As many of you know, the Mitchell House is the apartment building in Midtown Atlanta where Margaret Mitchell wrote most of "Gone With the Wind." They hold book talks in an auditorium in an adjacent commercial building. We drew a full house that included several familiar faces, including former Atlanta Constitution editor Tom Teepen, noted author Robert Coram, distinguished journalist Ann Woolner, veteran travel editor Fred Brown, and former Congressman Buddy Darden (who bought a book to give his friend former Gov. Roy Barnes). I was also pleased to see Sam Mahone, a civil rights activist in Americus during the 1960s who figures in the story and is working to preserve the history of the Sumter County movement. All in all, it was a wonderful evening. Thanks to Sheffield Hale, Kate Whitman and everyone at the History Center, and to Chuck Reece, whose online magazine, The Bitter Southerner, co-sponsored the event. Chuck (shown with me in the other picture) ably moderated the discussion. The link below takes you to the article I wrote about the book recently for The Bitter Southerner. 

 

Learning from bitterness

The Bitter Southerner, the online magazine with the intriguingly acrid name, asked me to write about the back story of "The Class of '65" and how the book has been received. My piece appears in the July 14 issue (linked below). The Bitter Southerner started a couple of years ago as the brainchild of veteran Atlanta journalist Chuck Reece and a few of his friends. The name originally referred to their enthusiasm for Southern spirits and food, but it quickly took on a broader meaning as they redirected the magazine toward in-depth stories about life and culture in the region -- stories like the tale of race, religion and reconciliation found in my book. Photographer Aaron Coury accompanied Greg Wittkamper and me to Americus, Ga., when the book came out last spring and took some evocative pictures of Greg at his high school and at Koinonia, the communal farm where he grew up. As we revisited the old haunts, there were moments that moved us to tears. While our story is not meant to engender bitterness -- quite the opposite -- some of the memories we summoned from the past are bitter indeed.

 

"A heartbreaking book"

The Christian Century ran a favorable review of "The Class of '65" this week, calling it a "heartbreaking book that confirms that we all have far to go and much to forgive." (Could I suggest that it might be a little heart-lifting as well?) The Century is among the oldest publications covering religion in America and is considered one of the most influential voices of mainline Protestantism. It wrote about the violence and boycott aimed at Koinonia during the 1950s, so in a sense, this is revisiting an old story with a new twist. "Local whites, unable to tell Christian communal life from Soviet communism and unwilling to countenance blacks and whites living together, tried to starve members out by refusing to trade with them," writes reviewer Lawrence Wood, a minister in Gulf Shores, Ala. "Several times Koinonia was bombed, its orchard was cut down, gunfire shattered windows. The children weren't sure whether to be angry at the townspeople or at their idealistic parents -- or even if they were permitted to be angry at all." Wood then says of the author: "Much of his story has the power to shock, but his telling is more powerful because he is unshockable." Perhaps it just looks that way. Here's a link to the review below: 

 

 

Love and hate

I’ve wondered this week what Clarence Jordan would say about the bloodshed in Charleston. As the co-founder of Koinonia, the communal farm where “The Class of ’65” is set, Clarence faced hatred and racist violence for years: bombings, shootings, an assassination attempt. Through it all, the Southern Baptist minister maintained his belief in nonviolence and loving one's enemies. But no one died at Koinonia during the terror years of the 1950s. What would he have to say to his fellow clergyman, Clementa Pinckney, whose killer succeeded where Clarence’s failed, and took eight others as well? This passage gives us a clue; it comes from “Clarence Jordan: The Substance of Faith And Other Cotton Patch Sermons”: 

“Even though people about us choose the path of hate and violence and warfare and greed and prejudice, we who are Christ's body must throw off these poisons and let love permeate and cleanse every tissue and cell. Nor are we to allow ourselves to become easily discouraged when love is not always obviously successful or pleasant. Love never quits, even when an enemy has hit you on the right cheek and you have turned the other, and he's also hit that. Love continues to forgive not only when a brother has sinned against you seven times, but seventy times seven. Love doesn’t quit or give up on a man whether he be a Communist or a Kluxer. Christ showed us how far love would go when he prayed for those who were driving the nails into his hands and said, ‘Father forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re up to.’” 

I hope the Rev. Jordan was there to welcome the Rev. Pinckney to heaven. I’m sure they have a lot to talk about and pray over.

Darkness before dawn

Fifty years ago this week, Greg Wittkamper graduated from Americus High School in a scene that vividly displayed the intolerance of the times and suggested the promise of a better day to come. That dichotomy is the essence of my book, “The Class of ’65.” At the commencement, held on the first Monday in June, Greg (shown here in his senior portrait) was booed when he rose to collect his diploma. After the ceremony, he and his black friend from Koinonia, Collins McGee, were chased from campus by a pack of men throwing rocks and spewing hate. But something else happened that day: Before the commencement, one of Greg’s classmates. David Morgan, shook his hand and congratulated him in front of the other students. It was the most considerate gesture Greg ever received from one of his white schoolmates. Years later, David was in charge of planning their 40th class reunion and set into motion the reconciliation that forms the centerpiece of the book. As this graduation season winds down, let us remember that a diploma is only the beginning of a true education.

Books and beans

Americus went a long time without a bookstore. I'm happy to report that the town has one again, Bittersweet, a charming shop across from the Windsor Hotel that sells coffee, chocolate and books like "The Class of '65," assuring that the place will have a wonderful scent even if some of the prose has an off smell. When one of the owners, Elena Albamonte, heard that I was speaking at the Albany Civil Rights Institute, she asked me to stop by and do a signing. They even printed a poster with my mug (which everyone must be getting tired of by now) and put it up around town. Two of the people who came out were my former AJC colleagues Susan Stevenson and Larry Perrault (seen here), who moved to Americus to work with Habitat for Humanity. I also saw Lorena Barnum Sabbs, head of the Barnum Funeral Home, whose limousine carried Greg Wittkamper and the first black students at Americus High to classes in the fall of 1964. Lorena graduated from AHS a few years later and suffered all kinds of harassment herself. She said she had bought half a dozen copies of "Class" because people needed to know where we've come from. As we were talking, I looked at that name -- Bittersweet -- and thought: Yes, it is. Thank you, Elena and everyone else for another meaningful evening.

Freedom road

One of the good things about writing a book like "The Class of '65" is that you get invited to speak at places like the Albany Civil Rights Institute. That's me with Frank Wilson, the executive director, in front of a Trailways bus display at the museum. The civil rights movement in southwest Georgia began at a bus station in Albany and spread to surrounding towns like Americus, the setting of my story. It was an honor to speak at a place that documents the Albany Movement, which was known for impassioned oratory and emotional singing at its many church mass meetings. I read from a journal kept by Lora Browne, one of the young people from Koinonia who attended some of those meetings in 1962 and who had never witnessed such scenes. "I was astonished!" she wrote. "I had never been to a service before in which the congregation responded to the minister as he talked!" Of course, the minister she was talking about was known to get a few "amens" and "tell it to them, bothers!" -- it was Martin Luther King Jr.

Welcome to book club

I did my first book club Monday night at the home of Carole and Irv Kay in the Huntcliff subdivision overlooking the Chattahoochee River in Sandy Springs. About 16 members of the Huntcliff Book Club came out, and I was heartened that more than half of them had read "The Class of '65" or listened it on audiobook. They asked good questions about bullying, race relations, historical memory and other issues arising from the story. (Of course they would ask good questions; several of them are writers or teachers, and our host, Carole Kay, is a distinguished journalist and former colleague of mine at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.) Book clubs have become very popular in recent years and are sometimes seen as an excuse for people to get together and quaff wine (hence the cocktail napkin you can buy that says, "My book club can drink your book club under the table"). Joking aside, most authors love to meet engaged readers in such an informal setting, I have several more book club appearances lined up and welcome more of them. Thank you for a fun and lively evening, Huntcliff. I feel well-prepared for the conversation and Chardonnay to come. 

Cakes and ale

We had a party Monday night to celebrate the publication of "The Class of '65" at Manuel's, the grand old tavern that has been a gathering place for Atlanta journalists since the 1950s. Another overflow crowd came out, most of them colleagues from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- including Diane Lore, a former editor of mine, whose daughter Emmie (seen here with me) is an aspiring writer who wanted to observe a book signing. Emmie is writing a novel about a dog that's part robot. I can relate; I live with a cat that's part couch. It was a lovely evening, and I was especially glad to see Dallas Lee, another former editor of mine, who lived at Koinonia during the late 1960s and wrote a lively biography of Clarence Jordan, "The Cotton Patch Evidence." Thanks to my pals Ralph Ellis and Susan Puckett for hosting the event, to Frank Reiss and A Cappella Books for moving the merch again, to all my friends from the newspaper and elsewhere who attended -- and to Manuel's for being Manuel's. And special thanks to my wife, Pamela Brown Auchmutey, whose birthday was Monday. The occasion was duly noted with a song and a cake, which tasted very sweet after all that beer.  

Forgiveness? Yeah, right ...

It's interesting to see how readers react to "The Class of '65." Salon, the online news and current events magazine, ran an excerpt of the book this weekend and named it as an editor's pick. They chose the Prologue, in which Greg Wittkamper receives apology letters from former classmates who were party to his persecution and debates whether to return for their reunion. One reader (PoodlePlay) said that he should return, but only for the 110th reunion in 2065. "I wouldn't go back, period," another reader (Leels) commented. "Let them wallow in their guilt and small-mindedness." Others were more receptive to the forgiveness theme. "That was fantastic and heartbreaking to read," said Patricia Schwarz. "What a powerful, emotional, enraging, but somewhat hopeful column this was!" wrote Lonestarr783, who also wondered what happened to Greg's black classmates who desegregated Americus High School. Read on, Lonestarr; it's in the Epilogue.