Francis Walter's Books

From Preaching to Meddling

A White Minister in the Civil Rights Movement

By: Francis Walter

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From Preaching to Meddling

A White Minister in the Civil Rights Movement

By: Francis Walter

For years Southern minister Francis X. Walter was silent about the injustices of Jim Crow, blinded by the status quo, until the violent killing of a fellow priest during the civil rights movement. From Preaching to Meddling is the story of how Walter turned from passive objector to outspoken agitator, marked with Walter's humor and personal recollections of the most formative period of modern American history. In a fascinating, funny, sometimes searing memoir, retired Episcopal priest Francis X. Walter shares his journey from the days of the Great Depression in Mobile, Alabama, across decades of Deep South segregation, and into the interracial struggles for racial justice and freedom in Alabama. The founder of the Selma Inter-religious Project, Walter’s story includes growing up in multi-ethnic, segregated Mobile and learning life lessons at theology schools in Sewanee and New York. Returning to Alabama, Walter spent years as an Episcopal priest navigating how to serve white parishes in Alabama while challenging the racism that most congregants believed was a God-given right. After the tragic murder of seminarian Jonathan Daniels shortly after the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965, Walter moved from pastoring segregationists to agitating against them as he became a committed supporter of the struggles for civil rights and racial justice in George Wallace’s Alabama. From Preaching to Meddling is a personal chronicle of some of the nation’s civil rights struggles in Alabama and of the memoirist’s own struggles with faith and fault. While recounting the people and communities he joined in fighting against the white South’s racial order in rural Alabama, Walter candidly shares questions, dilemmas, and perceptions of his own shortcomings. His is an engaging portrait of momentous times and of himself as both conflicted priest and crusading white Southerner.

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Page Count

325

Publisher

NewSouth Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1588383911

ISBN 13

9781588383914

The Fire in the Flint

By: Walter Francis White

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The Fire in the Flint

By: Walter Francis White

The Fire in the Flint (1924) is a novel by Walter Francis White. Although he is generally recognized for his accomplishments as the longtime leader of the NAACP, White also wrote several novels during the Harlem Renaissance exploring the themes of Alain Locke’s New Negro Movement. Praised by W. E. B. Du Bois in The Crisis and by Konrad Bercovici in The Nation, The Fire in the Flint remains an invaluable testament to the power of fiction to address political matters. Dr. Kenneth Harper finds it difficult to overcome the deep inequities of life in the American South. Born and raised in Georgia, he returns to his hometown following his graduation from medical school and service in the First World War. Determined to open a clinic for his friends and neighbors, he avoids confrontation with white townspeople and focuses on the task at hand. Soon, however, he encounters opposition from neighbors who regard his success and intelligence as a threat to their power. Eventually, Harper is forced to lay his life on the line by opposing the Ku Klux Klan. The Fire in the Flint is a powerful bildungsroman grounded in truth and moral decency. Praised by Nobel Laureate Sinclair Lewis upon publication, White’s novel is a largely forgotten masterpiece of the Harlem Renaissance, perhaps the finest decade for art in the history of American culture. With a beautifully designed cover and professionally typeset manuscript, this edition of Walter Francis White’s The Fire in the Flint is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.

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