T. R. M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer

T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, Civil Rights Pioneer tells the remarkable story of one of the early leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

A renaissance man, T.R.M. Howard (1908-1976) was a respected surgeon, important black community leader, and successful businessman. Howard's story reveals the importance of the black middle class, their endurance and entrepreneurship in the midst of Jim Crow, and their critical role in the early Civil Rights Movement.

In this powerful biography, David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito shine a light on the life and accomplishments of this civil rights leader. Howard founded black community organizations, organized civil rights rallies and boycotts, championed free enterprise and the Second Amendment, critiqued Big Government and socialism, mentored Medgar Evers, fought the Ku Klux Klan, and helped lead the fight for justice for Emmett Till and others. Raised in poverty and witness to racial violence from a young age, Howard was passionate about justice and equality. Ambitious, zealous, and sometimes paradoxical, T.R.M. Howard provides a complete and fascinating portrait of an important leader all too often forgotten.

David T. Beito is a research fellow at the Independent Institute and professor emeritus at the University of Alabama. He received his PhD in history at the University of Wisconsin and is the author of T.R.M. Howard: Doctor, Entrepreneur, and Civil Rights Pioneer (with Linda Royster Beito) and From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State: Fraternal Societies and Social Services, 1890-1967. He is also co-editor of The Voluntary City: Choice, Community and Civil Society and the forthcoming Rose Lane Says: Thoughts on Liberty and Equality, 1942-1945.

Linda Royster Beito is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Social Sciences and Dean of Arts and Science at Stillman College, where she has received several awards for excellence in teaching and was inducted into the Zeta Phi Beta Hall of Fame. She received her M.S. in criminal justice and Ph.D. in political science from the University of Alabama, and she has been Assistant Professor of Political Science and Criminal Justice at the University of South Alabama.

Jerry W. Mitchell is the Investigative Reporter for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, MS, who convinced authorities to reopen seemingly cold murder cases from the Civil Rights Era. Mitchell's work so far has helped put at least four Klansmen behind bars: Byron De La Beckwith for the 1963 assassination of NAACP leader Medgar Evers, Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers for ordering the fatal firebombing of NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer in 1966, Bobby Cherry for the 1963 bombing of a Birmingham church that killed four girls and Edgar Ray Killen, for helping orchestrate the June 21, 1964, killings of Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman.