McWhorter to Give ‘Last Witnesses to Segregation’ Talk at UA

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diane McWhorter will give a talk entitled “The Last Witnesses to Segregation: Dealing with the South’s Collective Amnesia about the Past” at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 17 at The University of Alabama.

This presentation, UA’s annual Allen Going Lecture, will be in 125 ten Hoor Hall and is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by Phi Beta Kappa.

McWhorter, author of “Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama – The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution,” grew up in Birmingham within a prominent family. These connections gave her special insights into the resistance that many whites mounted against the civil rights struggle. Her book details the collusion that often occurred between members of the city’s industrial and professional elite and the rough men who carried out the bombings and beatings of black activists such as the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth.

She spent years researching archives, especially those of local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She also conducted hundreds of interviews.

Publication of her book in 2001 ignited a new round of soul-searching over events that once made Birmingham synonymous with bombings and non-violent protest. McWhorter, who lives in New York, has frequently returned to Alabama to speak and be interviewed.