Monthly Archives: September 2011

A Touching Description of “Civil Rights Journey”

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Words can’t express how thankful I am for the outpouring of support I’ve received. Below are kind words from Janet Hampton.

“As I was reading Civil Rights Journey I found myself becoming totally captivated by the story that it conveyed. So many aspects of it resonated with me and brought forth feelings and emotions that I experienced during the years that it portrays. The depth and complexity of Joe Howell’s Nashville, revealed from the perspective of his life within his family and community, fleshed out the essence that was absent from my personal experience in that city as a student (when I was sixteen to eighteen years old) at Fisk University. It introduced me to a community that I never had the opportunity to know. With the exception of a few exchange students from Oberlin and a few international students at Fisk, my social contact with the white world was limited to a few Fisk professors and a handful of Vanderbilt students who were members of the Newman Club. On reflection it amazes me just how totally and methodically institutionalized segregation was at that time. The separation of races (and classes) could not have been more precise and decisive (and impassive?) if the scalpel of a skilled surgeon had brought it about.

Civil Rights Journey is an account of a young man’s coming of age, a young man shaped early in life by the crucibles of polio and segregation (both by decree and by custom) and later by that of the civil rights movement. Joe Howell’s story depicts the effects of human vulnerability and of human cruelty. The lingering effects of polio made him at times the object of bullying and derision, perhaps thus increasing his sensitivity to such cruelties manifested in the system of segregation. The reader shares the hopes, doubts, and at times despair that form Joe as he tries to wrest meaning from his experiences and determine what his path in life should be. Along his path Joe encounters and tries to reconcile the complexities and contradictions of the philosophies of members of SNCC and the Black Panthers, as well as those of his seminary colleagues and other volunteers who participated in that civil rights summer. The structure of this memoir is enhanced by the voice of Embry Howell, Joe’s wife. It complements Joe’s well. The thread of her voice is woven into the fabric of Joe’s story in the account of the civil rights summer that they shared, adding a richness of texture to that account. The story of the Holt family, also, is a compelling part of the memoir. It enriches the narrative. The Holts were a black family who embraced the Howells and added to their understanding of the reality not only of segregation in their community of Albany, Georgia, but also of injustices across our nation. Their story is a vivid portrait of the complexity of the black experience. The reader comes to know and care about the Holts and is inspired by the outcome of their story.

Civil Rights Journey offers the reader a multilayered account of a young man born in the pre–civil rights South, sheltered by a code of customs that privileged the white middle class at the expense of blacks and poor whites, and of his formation and moral development shaped by the crucible of his civil rights journey.”

-Janet Hampton, January 2011

Search for Meaning and Purpose in Life

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Joseph Howell & Embry Howell

Joe & Embry Howell

Civil Rights Journey is about growing up. It is about how a kid from a prominent Nashville family marched to a different drum beat—according to my reflections anyway— due in large part to having suffered with polio as a child, which caused him to identify with the underdog and people not part of the American mainstream.

Part of the experience of growing up is having to come to terms with the way the world is and the fact that it is far from perfect. In a perfect world, Africans would never have become slaves in the United States. There would never have been the period of Jim Crow. In the 1950s and 1960s when the story takes place, African Americans would have enjoyed equal status with whites and would have been able to get good jobs, live in nice homes in good, safe, integrated neighborhoods, go to good schools and have enough money left over for a nice meal out or a vacation. And then and now, there would not be big differences in income and financial wealth for all people. Families would be loving and strong.

In a perfect world, there would not be any wars or illness or suffering. And there certainly would not have been polio, striking down innocent kids in the 1950s.

But we do not live in a perfect world, and each of us in our own way has to come to grips with this fact and that, in all too short a period of time, we die. These are themes that run through Civil Rights Journey and give it a dimension beyond simply being a story of historical interest.

There is no silver bullet which answers these questions. Some people turn to religion, others to philosophy and some try to sweep these big questions under the rug. One message I think that comes out of the book is that jumping into the fray, trying in your own modest way to make a difference, to make the imperfect world just a little bit better, provides–if not an answer to the questions of meaning and purpose–a kind of meaning in itself. When you are in the fight, when you are engaged, when you are struggling for what you know is right, you magically discover that meaning is not inaccessible after all.

You Never Know

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Holt & Broadway Families in 1970s

Holt and Broadway families early 1970s

Think about your own life for a moment and the people who influenced you the most and made a real difference in your life. Maybe you let some of them know. If you are like me, you let a lot of moments pass when you could have communicated to them a very important message—that they really counted. And by the same count, you really never know whom you might have made a difference to.

I was breezing through the Amazon review section and came across a recent entry I had not seen before by Noah (Jackie) Holt. “Jackie” as we called him then was the oldest of the two boys who were the children of Jack and Dovanna Holt, the African American family we lived with when we were in southwest Georgia in 1966. Their small farm house was modest. There was no running water, but they were proud people and courageous people, who took us in at a time when just having a white person in your house could have gotten you killed. The year before there had been a standoff in their front yard between the Holts and members of the KKK, guns drawn on both sides.

Holt Family with Joe & Embry

The Holt family with Joe, Embry and Ashley at the reunion in 2009

Jackie was a teenager then and had hopes of some day attending college. He would have been the first to do so in his family just as he was the first to graduate from an integrated high school in Newton, Georgia. When we left southwest Georgia, we had no idea what his odds were.

For those of you who have read the book, you know that Jackie graduated from college in Texas at a traditionally African American school, then went on—with his wife whom he met there—to do graduate work at Stanford University and ended up as chief financial officer of major railroad, and his wife had a similar position for a major health insurance company. They made their home in the Bay area, received numerous civic awards and were pillars of their community. A few years ago retired back to Albany and live in an attractive suburban neighborhood.

Here is the review I stumbled across yesterday on Amazon by Noah Jackie Holt:

“This book has given honor to my family. My mother, Dovanna, my father, Noah Jack, along with others who lived in Holt Quarters, Newton Georgia. It tells an honest story of our life, good and bad during those years. The greatest honor would be for America to read this book and understand the real truth about the civil rights movement. After a 40 year journey, I have returned to my home in south Georgia. That journey began because Joe introduced me to a part of America that was good and hopeful.
I sincerely would like to thank Joe Howell for the valuable time spent in our home. I will always love him for that.”

You never know.

My son, who now lives in London, observed, “Dad, you know, if not another person reads your book, you will have fulfilled your mission.” He is right.

Appreciation for Passionate Writing

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Prospects for Civil Rights Journey

When you sit down to write a book, you follow your instincts and try your best to communicate a story or message that, if you are lucky, will be read by others. And if you are really lucky, they will be moved—or enlightened—by what you have written. The problem is that it is often years between the time a writer sets out to tell a story and the time the reading public gets to cast its verdict. The verdict is still out for Civil Rights Journey. I started work on the book over two years ago, and it is just starting to be read.

But I did get one early hint that maybe I was on the right track.

For all the copying of the manuscript—to send out to early reviewers, agents, and publishers—I made numerous copies at a local printing company. I don’t know how many versions I actually gave them, but there must have been at least a dozen. Finally when I felt I had made the last edit, I picked up the printed manuscript and told the person at the counter that I would not be coming in anymore because at last the book was finished.

“Hey,” she said, “This is a terrific book! You are going to sell a lot of copies.”

A bit puzzled, I asked. “You mean you have actually have read it?”

With a broad smile, she exclaimed, “We all have,” and at that moment, four beaming employees came out of the back room. One of them extended his hand and looking me right in the eye said, “I just wanted to shake your hand.” The others all did the same.

I was speechless. I hesitated to think about when they read the book or how they pulled it off. I gave them the benefit of a doubt that it could have been during their lunch hours.