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My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story

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By the time I read the last pages of Carolyn Haines' latest book, MY MOTHER'S WITNESS: THE PEGGY MORGAN STORY, I was standing. Right there in my office, behind my desk, I gave a one-woman standing ovation for Carolyn Haines, for Peggy Morgan, for Inez Albritton, for truth, for justice, for hope. The book brought me to my feet spontaneously, as awe and respect for a home run always do.

The drama that unfolds in Haines' first nonfiction book involves two of the most incredible stories you could ever imagine, proving, once again, that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. The book chronicles the life stories of Inez Albritton and her daughter Peggy Albritton Morgan, and the pivotal knowledge they each acquired about two of Mississippi's most notorious murders--the 1955 death of Emmett Till, and the 1963 death of Medgar Evers. The Honorable Bobby B. DeLaughter, Hinds County Circuit Judge, and former prosecutor in the case of State of Mississippi vs. Byron De La Beckwith, provides the book's Foreword.

The author, Carolyn Haines, is a prolific writer who has proably written thirty-five or forty books by now, all fiction. Creating good fiction is her reason to be. She spends her days riding horses and making up stories. For a good many years she was a journalist. She still has the journalist's eye and ear for a story. As fate would have it, she was at her desk at the University of South Alabama when a phone call came from Peggy Morgan. Morgan wanted to know if Haines was really a Mississippian, and if she would help Morgan write her life story. Haines explained that while she was certain Morgan had an interesting story to tell, she did not write nonfiction. Morgan talked on, and Haines' reporter's instinct made her listen. She did not want to write anyone's life story, but she went to see Peggy Morgan. "Once the thread began to unravel and Peggy's story spilled out," Haines writes in the book's Preface, "I knew there was no way I could walk away from it. It is a story that must be told." So Haines rolled up her sleeves and went to work telling it, immersing herself for over a year in the bizarre details of Peggy Morgan's life.

The book, set in the Mississippi Delta, opens with Peggy's mother, Inez Albritton, giving birth to her sixth child, Peggy Ruth, in the back seat of a Ford automobile. Once Inez married Gene Albritton, her life was set on a dangerous course of poverty, abuse, alcohol, and consecutive children. Her sixth child became her protector, all the while promising herself that when she grew up she would escape all the hardships she'd witnessed being visited upon her mother. When Peggy Albritton married Lloyd Morgan, the only man she'd ever seen defy her father, she embarked on a dangerous course almost identical to that of her mother. Both women eventually learned that the abuse they endured at the hands of their husbands spilled over into racial activity, as well. Inez Albritton spent years trying to tell someone the truth about who murdered Emmett Till, and Peggy Morgan spent years preparing to tell the truth about the murder of Medgar Evers. Both women were desperate to share what they knew. No one ever paid attention to Inez Albritton's story, but Peggy Morgan has finally succeeded in chronicling the truth for both of them. These are two interrelated stories that must be told, and Inez Albritton and Peggy Morgan are two Mississippi women who must be celebrated--for their perseverance, their courage, their honesty, their overwhelming humanity. We should all stand at the conclusion of this book.

she lives a couple of houses down from me.she told me about the book,and i checked it out at the mobile library.after i read it i knew i had to have a copy so i went online and got one.what a story.takes me back to my old mississippi days.great book.

I live right in Mobile, and was in a downtown bookstore when I ran across the book on Wednesday. Although I badly wanted to get the book, I went right up the street to the Mobile Public Library and got a copy of the book and read it, and I tell you it is something. Poor Inez Albritton took years of abuse, but when she found out about Emmett Till, she wanted so badly to tell, but was so scared that her husband had her institutionalized in a mental health facility. Her daughter,Peggy Morgan, took her knowledge about Medgar Evers, and despite many opposition, told what she knew. What gets me so mad is these men just beating these poor women down. Just beat the spirit out of them, and when they do their dirt, they drink and abuse their families. This book is harrowing, yet poignant and beautiful. this book is highly recommended by me to all women.

I've read all of Carolyn Haines Southern Belle books and loved them all so much I did a search to see what else she had written. I've read almost all of her books now but My Mother's Witness: The Peggy Morgan Story is the only non-fiction I've read. It reads like fiction and kept me on the edge of my seat. I am from the south and grew up in much the same time period and I was clueless as to the events from behind the scenes. Ms. Haines did an incredible job of telling Peggy Morgan's story and made me feel as though I was walking beside Peggy
through her life. I've bought several copies for friends I've told about the book and they too had trouble putting it down.

Carolyn Haines does a superb job of telling Peggy Morgan's life story. Peggy was the key witness in the final and successful trial of Byron De La Beckwith, convicted for murdering civil rights leader Medgar Evers. Haines' use of dialogue and her ability to paint the picture put me back in the Mississippi Delta when life was horrible for all blacks and poor whites, as well. Morgan's mother knew secrets about the killers of Emmett Till and she carried those secrets to her grave. Peggy Morgan "inherited" her mother's difficult role, learning Beckwith's secret, but was able to use the information to put Beckwith into prison. I could not put this book down and recommend it to anyone else interested in modern civil rights.