In honor of Black History Month, I selected The Children by David Halberstam. It was published in 1998.
David Halberstam (April 10, 1924 – April 23, 2007) was born in New York City.
His family was Jewish. He was an American historian, journalist, and writer. Halberstam won a Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting in 1964 for his coverage of the Vietnam War. He wrote about the Korean War, the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, politics, business, media, American culture, and sports.
Halberstam was 73 when he was killed in an auto accident in California.
He was on his way to interview Y.A. Tittle for a book about the 1958 championship game between the New York Giants and the Baltimore Colts. The book was completed by Frank Gifford who played for the Giants in that game. Gifford dedicated the book to Halberstam.
After graduating From Harvard University, Halberstam began his career in journalism at the smallest newspaper in Mississippi, the Daily Times in West Point. He covered the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement after he moved to Tennessee to be a reporter for The Tennessean in Nashville. According to John Lewis, Halberstam was the only journalist in Nashville who would cover the Nashville sit-ins.
The Children is a look back at the Civil Rights Movement from the perspective of the young men and women frustrated by Jim Crow Laws and inspired by Rosa Parks’ bold refusal to give up her bus seat to a White man and the Montgomery bus boycott that followed. They revered Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and wanted to help integrate the South.
They were introduced in churches as “the children” because they were the next generation of Black Americans, and it reinforced the idea that they were the children of God doing God’s work to bring about positive change for all members of the black community.
These young people were college students primarily from Black colleges and universities in the Nashville area. After the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 that state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, the Black community had been hopeful, but state legislatures in the Deep South were slow to integrate schools developing plans that called for gradual integration starting at the first-grade level. The Eisenhower Administration was reluctant to push too hard fearing political blow back in future elections.
When the Supreme Court affirmed the U.S. District Court decision in Browder v. Gayle in 1956 that Alabama and Montgomery laws segregating buses are unconstitutional, Blacks again hoped and expected to see changes.
Starting in 1959, Students in Nashville decided to begin a campaign to integrate the lunch counters in Nashville. Black shoppers could spend their money in stores, but they were refused service at lunch counters. There were separate sections or rooms reserved in some restaurants for Blacks. At many businesses, Blacks were not allowed to enter through the front doors. At restaurants they often had to pay for their meals in the kitchen and eat them outside, even in winter.
Black students were joined by a small group of White students who came to the first meetings and participated in what became known as the Nashville Student Movement (NSM). Their participation was important, but it had to be handled carefully. The NSM had to be led by Blacks. It was important to show Blacks in leadership roles to encourage other Blacks to stand up for themselves. There could be no White saviors only supporters following the leaders of the NSM.
During the sit-ins, the students were called names, beaten, and arrested. Each attempt was met with more resistance, but the NSM remained non-violent.
Taking the high road was hard, following the examples of Ghandi and Dr. King were difficult when you were watching your friends being attacked and arrested while their assailants remained free.
Halberstam focuses on the Nashville sit-ins and the Freedom Riders. He examines the ideological struggles between the SCLC, the NSM, the NAACP, and the formation of the SNCC – the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.
The young people featured prominently throughout the book include John Lewis, Diane Nash, James Bevel, Andrew Young, Marion Barry, C.T. Vivian, Bernard Lafayette, James Lawson, Gloria Johnson, and Jim Zwerg. He looks at their families and the struggles of their parents. Halberstam follows their personal and professional lives during and after their participation in the NSM including John Lewis’ rise to prominence in Congress and Marion Barry’s fall from grace during his time as mayor of Washington D.C.
He addresses the failings of the federal government which allowed states in the South to thwart integration by using violence, intimidation, incarceration, and gerrymandering.
Most importantly, through his interviews, Halberstam lets his subjects speak to his readers. These are firsthand accounts of what it actually felt like to be denied basic human rights, to be considered less than because of the color of your skin, and to watch the people you love being victimized and denied the protections of the law and their legal right to register to vote and vote in all elections.
Reading accounts of the Civil Rights Movement in history books didn’t prepare me for the realities of the struggles of these brave men and women. Reading about what they endured made me angry. i can only begin to imagine the anger these men and women lived with. I was frustrated by the political machinations then and now which maintain the status quo instead of addressing important issues.
If books can change the world, this is one of the books I want the world to read.
Other Books by David Halberstam:
Fiction:
The Noblest Roman (1961)
Non-fiction:
The Making of a Quagmire: America and Vietnam During the Kennedy Era (1965)
One Very Hot Day (A battle in Vietnam) 1967
The Unfinished Odyssey of Robert Kennedy: A Biography (1968)
Ho (Ho Chi Minh) 1971
The Best and the Brightest: Jennedy and Johnson Administrations (1972)
The Powers That Be (1979)
The Breaks of the Game (Bill Walton and the Portland Trailblazers) 1981
The Amateurs: The Story of Four Young Men and Their Quest for an Olympic Gold Medal (1985)
The Reckoning (1986)
Summer of ’49: (The Yankees-Red Sox Rivalry) 1989
The Next Century (1991)
The Fifties (1993)
October 1964 (The Yankees - Cardinals World Series) 1994
Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made (1999)
War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals (2001)
Firehouse (West Manhattan Engine 40, Ladder 35…September 11, 2001) 2002
The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship (2003)
The Education of a Coach (Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots) 2005
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War (2007)
The Glory Game: How the 1958 NFL Championship Changed Football Forever (2008 – completed by Frank Gifford)