Profiling 24 of the adult children of the most recognizable figures in
the civil rights movement, this book collects the intimate, moving
stories of families who were pulled apart by the horrors of the struggle
or brought together by their efforts to change America. The whole range
of players is covered, from the children of leading figures like Martin
Luther King Jr. and martyrs like James Earl Chaney to segregationists
like George Wallace and Black Panther leaders like Elaine Brown. The
essays reveal that some children are more pessimistic than their
parents, whose idealism they saw destroyed by the struggle, while others
are still trying to change the world. Included are such inspiring
stories as the daughter of a notoriously racist Southern governor who
finds her calling as a teacher in an all-black inner-city school and the
daughter of a famous martyr who unexpectedly meets her mother's killer.
From the first activists killed by racist Southerners to the current
global justice protestors carrying on the work of their parents, these
profiles offer a look behind the public face of the triumphant civil
rights movement and show the individual lives it changed in surprising
ways.