Synopses & Reviews
The Last Days is something entirely different in the literature of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This uncompromising, heartbreaking memoir shows how people struggled with the actual processes of integration. Seeking to come to terms with the haunting memories of his childhood and adolescence in the Deep South, Charles Marsh has crafted a gripping story of small-town Southern life caught up in the whirlwind of the civil rights movement and its fallout.
Synopsis
Seeking to come to terms with the haunting memories of his childhood in the deep South-Charles Marsh has crafted a memoir of small-town Southern life caught up in the whirlwind of the Civil Rights movement. As minister of the First Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi, Charles Marsh's father Bob Marsh, was a prominent man who was beloved by the community. But Laurel was also home to Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi KKK and the director of their daily, unchallenged installments of terror and misery. Bowers was known and tolerated by the entire white community of Laurel. This included Bob Marsh, who struggled to do the right thing while reeling between righteous indignation and moral torpor, only slowly awakening to fear, suffering, and guilt over his unwillingness to take a public stand against Bowers. At the same time, The Last Days examines the collision of worlds once divided-white Protestant conservatism, the African American struggle for civil rights, and late 1960s counter culture-that propelled the dramatic changes in everyday life in a small Southern town.
Synopsis
This uncompromising, heartbreaking memoir explores how good Christian folk acquiesced to the terror of the KKK and how the author's father, a prominent Baptist minister, eventually found the courage to share in the vision of a new South.
About the Author
Charles Marsh is Professor of Religion at the University of Virginia and Director of the Project on Lived Theology. He is the author of Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the award-winning God's Long Summer, and The Last Days. He lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.