The Children Quotes

“That made him a perfect match for Philip’s new brother-in-law, Jim Lawson. For if Curtis Murphy was weird, then Jim Lawson was even weirder, not only because he was already going to divinity school at the most unattainable of Nashville schools, Vanderbilt, but because he had simultaneously started holding classes on how to challenge segregation in Nashville.”
― David Halberstam, The Children

“When Rodney heard about the workshops being held by Jim Lawson, he suggested that she come along with him, that this was what they had both come to Nashville for. She went along and was immediately impressed by Jim Lawson. She and Rodney agreed that they would never work together on the exact same team, for fear that if one of them was being hurt by a white assailant, the other might not be able to sustain the vow of nonviolence. p89”
― David Halberstam, The Children

“The problem with police work, he once told Ray Jenkins, was that by its nature it tended to attract a certain percentage of sadistic people, who enjoyed the job because it legitimized their natural meanness. So, he added, the first thing any good police chief had to do was set the limits for his”
― David Halberstam, The Children