Excerpt
Tom Brokaw author of The Greatest Generation Curtis Wilkie, one of the very best journalists of our generation, has written a heartfelt and insightful tale of his journey from the red soil of Mississippi to the great news events of his time and back again. I loved it. David Halberstam former senior reporter, The West Point Mississippi Daily Times Leader, 1955-1956 In 1954, when the Supreme Court acted on Brown v. Board of Education, Mississippi was America's own private South Africa, a land of de facto apartheid, where white supremacy was cruelly sustained by state-sponsored violence against any black initiative for political and social freedom. In Dixie, Curtis Wilkie, a native son and one of the nation's most distinguished journalists, tells of Mississippi's slow, violent, and often agonizing path back to becoming part of the Union. This is, in the best sense, the personal memoir as living history. Roy Blount Jr., author of Be Sweet The legendary yet factual Curtis Wilkie has been the right man in the right place at an uncanny number of extraordinary times. Now he's pulled it all together -- the second draft of history, so to speak -- and damn if it doesn't make sense. Lively yet serious. They ought to teach this book in schools. Douglas Brinkley director of the Eisenhower Center and professor of history, University of New Orleans Over the past four decades no reporter has critiqued the American South with such evocative sensitivity and bedrock honesty as Curtis Wilkie. Beloved as a renegade liberal throughout the journalism profession, Wilkie's poignant memoir Dixie offers an unvarnished historical meditation about a complicated region so few of us really understand. A wonderful achievement. Steve Neal political columnist, Chicago Sun-Times and author of Harry and Ike Curtis Wilkie's Dixie is a worthy companion to William Alexander Percy's Lanterns on the Levee and Willie Morris's North Toward Home. In the tradition of these classics, Dixie is both memoir and social history, and it is written with candor, honesty, and fresh insights. The author is particularly good at showing how the old order gave way to change in the nation's most fascinating region. For anyone interested in the Southern experience, Wilkie's Dixie is essential reading. Myra MacPherson author of She Came to Live Out Loud and Long Time Passing: Vietnam and the Haunted Generation In Dixie, Curtis Wilkie -- a child of the segregated South and a young adult during the violent march toward integration -- captures both his own emerging conscience and the growing pains of his changing homeland. And being a true Southern writer, Wilkie serves up this gem of a personal history with wit and wisdom. The Honorable Bobby DeLaughter author of Never Too Late Curtis Wilkie's narrative offers much more than the personal journey of an individual. It reflects a wonderful history of a region and the growth of its people. Wilkie's story is a must read for every Southerner and any Yankee willing to accept this truth: racism comes in all colors and is not confined to a specific geographic region. The new frontier for civil rights and racial harmony is no longer the streets or the courtroom, but rather the heart. Reasonable people everywhere must speak out for what is right and condemn what is wrong. Otherwise we allow the extremists on all sides to bring disharmony, if not chaos.