Americus went a long time without a bookstore. I'm happy to report that the town has one again, Bittersweet, a charming shop across from the Windsor Hotel that sells coffee, chocolate and books like "The Class of '65," assuring that the place will have a wonderful scent even if some of the prose has an off smell. When one of the owners, Elena Albamonte, heard that I was speaking at the Albany Civil Rights Institute, she asked me to stop by and do a signing. They even printed a poster with my mug (which everyone must be getting tired of by now) and put it up around town. Two of the people who came out were my former AJC colleagues Susan Stevenson and Larry Perrault (seen here), who moved to Americus to work with Habitat for Humanity. I also saw Lorena Barnum Sabbs, head of the Barnum Funeral Home, whose limousine carried Greg Wittkamper and the first black students at Americus High to classes in the fall of 1964. Lorena graduated from AHS a few years later and suffered all kinds of harassment herself. She said she had bought half a dozen copies of "Class" because people needed to know where we've come from. As we were talking, I looked at that name -- Bittersweet -- and thought: Yes, it is. Thank you, Elena and everyone else for another meaningful evening.
Freedom road
One of the good things about writing a book like "The Class of '65" is that you get invited to speak at places like the Albany Civil Rights Institute. That's me with Frank Wilson, the executive director, in front of a Trailways bus display at the museum. The civil rights movement in southwest Georgia began at a bus station in Albany and spread to surrounding towns like Americus, the setting of my story. It was an honor to speak at a place that documents the Albany Movement, which was known for impassioned oratory and emotional singing at its many church mass meetings. I read from a journal kept by Lora Browne, one of the young people from Koinonia who attended some of those meetings in 1962 and who had never witnessed such scenes. "I was astonished!" she wrote. "I had never been to a service before in which the congregation responded to the minister as he talked!" Of course, the minister she was talking about was known to get a few "amens" and "tell it to them, bothers!" -- it was Martin Luther King Jr.
Welcome to book club
I did my first book club Monday night at the home of Carole and Irv Kay in the Huntcliff subdivision overlooking the Chattahoochee River in Sandy Springs. About 16 members of the Huntcliff Book Club came out, and I was heartened that more than half of them had read "The Class of '65" or listened it on audiobook. They asked good questions about bullying, race relations, historical memory and other issues arising from the story. (Of course they would ask good questions; several of them are writers or teachers, and our host, Carole Kay, is a distinguished journalist and former colleague of mine at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.) Book clubs have become very popular in recent years and are sometimes seen as an excuse for people to get together and quaff wine (hence the cocktail napkin you can buy that says, "My book club can drink your book club under the table"). Joking aside, most authors love to meet engaged readers in such an informal setting, I have several more book club appearances lined up and welcome more of them. Thank you for a fun and lively evening, Huntcliff. I feel well-prepared for the conversation and Chardonnay to come.
Cakes and ale
We had a party Monday night to celebrate the publication of "The Class of '65" at Manuel's, the grand old tavern that has been a gathering place for Atlanta journalists since the 1950s. Another overflow crowd came out, most of them colleagues from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution -- including Diane Lore, a former editor of mine, whose daughter Emmie (seen here with me) is an aspiring writer who wanted to observe a book signing. Emmie is writing a novel about a dog that's part robot. I can relate; I live with a cat that's part couch. It was a lovely evening, and I was especially glad to see Dallas Lee, another former editor of mine, who lived at Koinonia during the late 1960s and wrote a lively biography of Clarence Jordan, "The Cotton Patch Evidence." Thanks to my pals Ralph Ellis and Susan Puckett for hosting the event, to Frank Reiss and A Cappella Books for moving the merch again, to all my friends from the newspaper and elsewhere who attended -- and to Manuel's for being Manuel's. And special thanks to my wife, Pamela Brown Auchmutey, whose birthday was Monday. The occasion was duly noted with a song and a cake, which tasted very sweet after all that beer.
Forgiveness? Yeah, right ...
It's interesting to see how readers react to "The Class of '65." Salon, the online news and current events magazine, ran an excerpt of the book this weekend and named it as an editor's pick. They chose the Prologue, in which Greg Wittkamper receives apology letters from former classmates who were party to his persecution and debates whether to return for their reunion. One reader (PoodlePlay) said that he should return, but only for the 110th reunion in 2065. "I wouldn't go back, period," another reader (Leels) commented. "Let them wallow in their guilt and small-mindedness." Others were more receptive to the forgiveness theme. "That was fantastic and heartbreaking to read," said Patricia Schwarz. "What a powerful, emotional, enraging, but somewhat hopeful column this was!" wrote Lonestarr783, who also wondered what happened to Greg's black classmates who desegregated Americus High School. Read on, Lonestarr; it's in the Epilogue.