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BEV: A Novel - Softcover

Williams, Andrea

 
9781476797359: BEV: A Novel
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1476797358 ISBN 13: 9781476797359
Verlag: Pocket, 2016

Inhaltsangabe

Based on the real life story of a little-known figure in the Civil Rights Movement: a white social worker who left the comforts of her life in New York City to travel to the segregated South, comes BEV, a fictionalized account of the strength, compassion, and dangers people faced in their fight to help African Americans achieve equality.

After watching the horrifying images of dogs, hoses, and violence on March 7, 1965 a.k.a Bloody Sunday, Bev Luther, a white Northerner, determined she could no longer afford to remain a spectator. As a social worker, she knew she was needed to help and march alongside African Americans, Asians, and Latinos in the quest for equality. Along with several other Northerners—mostly whites—she decided to travel down to the tense segregated South right in the middle of an era that would change America forever.

With a clear understanding of history and evocative language, BEV is the fictionalized account of those who answered the call to help their fellow citizens earn the right to vote.

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

Andrea Williams is an author, journalist and editor who's always on the lookout for the next great story. Though currently residing in Nashville, Tennessee with her husband and four children, Andrea's heart will always remain in her hometown of Kansas City, Missouri, where it feasts constantly on Kansas City Royals baseball and Gates & Sons Barbecue.

Matty Rich is a video game executive and filmmaker whose critically acclaimed 1991 breakout film Straight Out of Brooklyn won many awards, including the Independent Spirit Award.

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BEV

ONE

“WE’RE GOING TO Mississippi.”

Mickey Schwerner’s words were blunt and succinct. He raked his right hand along his scruffy beard as he stared boldly into the eyes of David Dunning, his friend since their days studying social work at Cornell, and fellow compatriot in the New York civil rights movement. David returned Mickey’s gaze, his handsome, mocha-colored face absent of expression. He was unsure of how to respond to his friend, to this latest in a long line of fearless—if calculated—efforts.

But Bev, never one to hold her tongue, jumped in immediately. “Who is ‘we’?”

“Rita and me,” Mickey responded, now holding his wife’s hand as it rested atop the dingy table situated in the northwest corner of Shelly’s Diner. They exchanged a quick glance and then, as if to confirm their resoluteness, turned back to their friends in unison.

Bev pulled a Kent cigarette from her purse, lit it, and took a long draw before asking, “Are you sure?”

Bev hadn’t known Mickey and Rita as long as David had, but she had spent the past few years with them, attending meetings and protests to further the cause of low-income, at-risk Negroes in New York. She knew they were wholly committed to the cause, as was she. She’d heard about Mickey successfully integrating Cornell’s chapter of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity as an undergrad, and she was there when he and Rita, a schoolteacher, worked to integrate the Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in Maryland. Most recently, Bev had been present to watch the Schwerners in action as they led Manhattan’s Lower East Side branch of the Congress of Racial Equality, otherwise known as CORE.

Bev also knew that Mickey had been transfixed by the Birmingham riots just a year prior, as the entire nation sat glued to television sets and newspaper articles that provided eyewitness accounts of the mayhem that ensued when Negro residents took to the streets following a series of bombings targeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his family.

On May 10, 1963, King had been on hand for the Birmingham Truce Agreement, a proposed compromise among city representatives and local business leaders that called for partial desegregation of public facilities, including retail store fitting rooms and water fountains, as well as economic advancement opportunities for Negro workers. There was also to be a Committee on Racial Problems and Employment formed as a result of the agreement.

But, in typical supremacist fashion, Bull Connor, Birmingham’s notorious commissioner of public safety, denounced the so-called truce and threatened to impede its enforcement. Meanwhile, as King and other Negro leaders basked in their apparent victory, KKK leaders from across the South were coordinating a series of attacks, with some believed to have involved officers of the Birmingham Police Department directly.

Neither of the bombs detonated on May 11—one outside of King’s brother’s home and another at the Gaston Motel, where King had been staying—were successful in reaching their intended target, or anyone else, for that matter. But that did little to douse the flames of fury that had been rising within the community of oppressed and depressed Negroes for generations.

When the fire finally burst forth, angry Negroes took to the streets of Birmingham, determined to seek their own justice. Some, like the three men who slashed the torso of Officer J. N. Spivey, worked in direct opposition to King’s nonviolent credo. It was almost fitting, though, as Birmingham’s own response was swift, strong, and equally violent, and included state troopers who beat back protestors while armed with machine guns.

These scenes of unrest were, ultimately, what fertilized the seed of social discontent already taking root in Mickey’s heart, feeding it until it became this monster of a thing that demanded more, more, more until finally, Mickey was willing to put his life on the line for the freedom of others.

Bev knew this, but she was still taken aback by this latest declaration. Mississippi? The hotbed—both literally and ­figuratively—­of the nation’s cruelest bigotry? Where tempers of the racist powers that be rose quicker than sweltering August temperatures? That Mississippi?

And what about Rita? she wondered. Sure, there were women who had been involved in the movement, but to voluntarily place his wife of just under two years on the front lines of the civil rights struggle—had Mickey lost his mind?

“Mississippi is where we need to be,” Mickey said. “The work we’re doing here in New York is great, but in the Deep South, we’re not talking about whether Negroes can buy a home in a certain part of town. We’re talking about basic human rights.” He paused for a beat, then lowered his voice for effect. “Did you know that in Mississippi, only six percent of the eligible Negro population is registered to vote? Those people have been stripped of their ability to control their futures and the future of their family.”

Mickey then turned to Bev, as if somehow surmising her thoughts and answering them directly. His brown eyes sparkled with excitement as he spoke. “Rita and I have discussed this extensively,” he said, gripping her hand even tighter now. “We are not at all naive to the grave danger, but we also refuse to sit idle while innocent people are subjected to such cruelty. We just can’t. Rita and I are taking this step together.”

Bev took another draw of her cigarette, feeling a sense of pride and admiration welling within her, displacing the worry and concern that had tried to take root. Bev had spent her entire career—her entire life, really—in a painstaking effort to level the playing field for all people, regardless of race or gender. And here she was, sitting across from two people who, in bearing the same white skin as she, may not have had a direct, personal link to the civil rights movement, but who were as passionate and steadfast as if their own ancestors had once been enslaved.

Certainly, with Mickey and Rita having only been married for a couple of years, it seemed more appropriate for them to be honeymooning in some tropical locale than venturing off into the dark underbelly of American racism. But as Mickey emphasized the word “together,” Bev understood that this move was, in fact, a symbol of their love and dedication to their marriage vows and to each other, to supporting that which most compelled them. She could only hope that she would one day have a husband whose innermost desires aligned so closely with her own.

While David remained silent, poking solemnly at his chicken salad, Bev pressed on. “So what will you be doing, exactly?”

“Well,” said Rita, “CORE is establishing a community center in Meridian, Mississippi, that will provide many of the basic services that the state and local authorities refuse to provide for Negroes. We’ll be able to help the adults understand their rights as citizens, while also teaching the children subjects that they’d never have access to in public schools.

“It’s amazing, really, this idea that we’ll be able to have a direct impact on these people, not just right now, but for generations to come,” she added, her voice soft and demure but just as firm as her husband’s. “Access to quality education has the ability to change the course of a person’s life more completely and effectively than any other variable.”

Bev smiled as she reached across the table with both arms,...

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Verlag
Pocket
Erscheinungsdatum
2016
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
1476797358
ISBN 13 
9781476797359
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Simon and Schuster Netherlands BV
info@simonandschuster.nl

Herculesplein 96
Utrecht
3584 AA
Niederlande