Customer Reviews

From Southern Wrongs to Civil Rights: The Memoir of a White Civil Rights Activist

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Sara Perry was raised as the typical southern white lady. She was to assume the role of dutiful wife, devoted mother and hostess for her husband's social set. As Sara Mitchell she carried out her role of the southern house-wife which included a lovely home, Negro maid and status in the upper class community of Buckhead in Atlanta, GA.

All was going well for this southern white matron but the seeds of discontent stirred in her life. She wanted more out of life than a role. Slowly but surely a change was to occur which would change her life and the fabric of the world in which she grew up.

Contained in these pages in the memoir of a woman who had it all but made the step to get involved in the battle for civil rights regardless of the cost. Her battle ground was the Atlanta school board, her church, family and marriage. Caught up in the fervor of the Civil rights movement we see how a woman of privilege made the steps of becoming an activist.

Parsons' story is an eye-opener of the role southern white women played in the movement. Her being a part of the affluent class makes her story all the more remarkable due to the pressures she would endure. Her tale is one in which everyone should read to get an understanding of the thoughts and feelings of a woman who put her status at risk.

What I find most interesting concerning her tenure on the Atlanta school board are the issues she addresses concerning education in addition to the integration question. The issues she addressed in the 1960s are the same ones with us in the year 2000. You will get an idea about how "concerned" the majority of the board was with education.

This dynamic woman broke the rules of convention of her day. She of course is not a saint but an example to follow in having the courage and fortitude to step out for what is right. I highly recommend this as a primary text for those studying education, civil rights, and female empowerment.

I, too, love this book. This woman dared to tell the emperor that he had no clothes when she fought for equal schools for everyone. She paid a heavy price personally but still maintained her position for what is right. This book should be required reading in high school!

Sara Parsons' autobiographical story of her transformation from housewife to civil rights leader captures the imagination of what average people can do. Set in segregated Atlanta, Parsons' story tells of her struggle to engage her family, her friends, her churches, and her pastors in very basic advocacy for civil rights. With little reason for encouragement, she continued to push for civil rights. Hers is not as much of a story of epic acts as it the story of the consistent, simple acts of a called and driven woman. The reader watches Parsons grow in her own courage and conviction as she moves from small acts of advocacy to politics. She loses family and friends and stature in the community, but she never relents. She was one of Atlanta's early female leaders and one of the city's first white advocates for civil rights. Parsons returned to live in Atlanta. She will turn 99 in 201l, and she remains an icon of courage.

Sara Mitchell Parsons was one of the true heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in Atlanta. As a white woman from a privileged background, she took on the racist status-quo of Atlanta as a school board member and constantly and intelligently challenged the city to provide quality education for black and white students alike and to integrate the schools. She knew when it was time to leave her hidebound racist husband and she knew when it was time to leave the Civil Rights Movement though she continued to work for equal education for her entire life. She was a courageous and forceful influence for many young men and women of the 60s in Atlanta. I was one of those.

I'm standing in the Great Hall of one of Birmingham, Alabama's largest cathedrals, chatting amicably with two nicely-dressed white women who are pillars and patrons of their church. Wonder how it is possible that these two genteel ladies turned out to be so very, very different form their contemporary, Sara Mitchell Parsons.
These three women are Privileged White Class people, educated in the ways of the Old South, conversant with all-white country clubs, free from racial persecution of any kind.
What made Parsons reverse direction, give up social standing and become an Atlanta civil rights activist in a day and time when to do so was actually a life-endangering act?
Why did the other two women remain placid and content in their social roles and blatantly disdainful of all civil rights activities of black people, even to this day? "They (Those Black People) just aren't grateful. They don't appreciate the fact that we (White Folk) gave them good livings and brought them up from the savages they were."
This book is a plain-spoken narrative about a white person's journey through the confines of bigotry, racism, intolerance, hatred and concrete-solid Tradition. Parsons comes out on the other side feeling a lot better about herself and a lot less tolerant herself--intolerant toward the status quo of Southern White Bigotry.
Take a look at this modest book. It came out at a time when the McWhorter book about Birmingham got lots of well-deserved attention, occluding the release of smaller books like this. But this, too, deserves your notice. It tells a similar story, but without all the spice, lenghthy detail and scholarly overstatement. Both books should be issued together in a slipcase.
(For a copy of the entire review of this book, contact me at jimreedbooks.com)