Customer Reviews

No Turning Back: My Summer With Daddy King

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I'll admit to my bias: Rev. Brewster is the pastor of the Episcopal church I currently attend. He's a lovely, humble man, who for many years didn't talk much about his experiences with Daddy and Dr. King. We, his parishioners, only knew tidbits of his summer in Atlanta in '61. Needless to say, after reading this book, it is with both surprise and awe when I say how his story is both profoundly moving and important to read. We know so much about MLK Jr. but here is where you read about Daddy King's life, and his own struggle with civil rights as a sharecropper's son. You also learn of the wonderful people who surround the Kings at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

While I agree with the reviewer who wishes for more of the author's emotional experience in his account, this is an engaging read, a page-turner. On the other hand at times he is refreshingly frank, honest, and revealing of just how innocent and naive he was as a bright-eyed and bushey-tailed seminarian.

There are moments when one wonders how Brewster ever lived to tell this tale. It is a total wonder that this young white outsider wasn't killed by bigoted Red Necks in the Atlanta area. It could have happened at the roadside gas & grocery, or at the community pool, or at a church parking lot one evening. In all three instances it was but for the grace of God that Gurdon Brewster made it through the Summer of 1961.

The world is a better place because people such as Reverend Brewster are in it!

Given the subject matter, one hopes for more in the way of insight and emotion than this well-meaning book ultimately delivers. It has its moments, to be sure, moments that move one to tears. And Daddy King does come across as a powerful spiritual figure. But the author's limitations as a writer seriously compromise the ultimate effectiveness of the book, which seems to have enough real content for a good long article. In the end one admires Daddy King and Mrs. King, one has a certain affectionate respect for the author, but one (at least this one) leaves unsatisfied. The author was not well-served by his apparently over-indulgent editor(s).