Carry Me Home

Summary

A panoramic history of the 1963 civil rights confrontation in Birmingham, Alabama, centered on the children's marches, Bull Connor's fire hoses, and the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. McWhorter, who grew up in the city's white elite, interlaces archival reporting with a memoir-like investigation of her own father's drift toward segregationist militancy. The hybrid form gives the narrative both historical sweep and uncomfortable personal intimacy.