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Arizona Republic Review of Voices in Our Blood
By Anne Stephenson
Meacham, who is managing editor of Newsweek, begins
this book with
aconversation that took place in Paris in 1957 between Willie Morris
and expatriate Richard Wright, both men from Mississippi. After many
drinks, Morris asked Wright if he would ever go back to America. "No,"
Wright said. "I want my children to grow up as human beings."
That's a good and just start for an anthology of writing about the civil-rights
movement, and you're a cold soul if you are not moved by what you read
here. Included are Murray Kempton'sdescription of 64-year-old Mose Wright's
courageous testimony in the 1955 trial of the men accused of murdering
Emmett Till; thoughts on the South (and Southerners) from Carl T. Rowan,
John Steinbeck, E.B. White and Flannery O'Connor; autobiographical writings
from Maya Angelou and James Baldwin; Alex Haley's Playboy interview with
Malcolm X; and contributions from Ralph Ellison, Taylor Branch, Stanley
Crouch, Alice Walker and others.
