And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography - Hardcover

Abernathy, Ralph David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060161922 ISBN 13: 9780060161927

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1991

Synopsis

A leading figure in the Civil Rights movement and an intimate friend of Martin Luther King, Jr. describes his own life, the murder of King, and his continuing struggle for freedom, dignity, and human rights.

About this title

About the Author:

Ralph David Abernathy was an American civil rights leader and Martin Luther King Jr.'s closest friend and associate. Following King's assassination, Abernathy took up the leadership of the SCLC's Poor People's Campaign and led the march on Washington in May 1968.

From Publishers Weekly:

Abernathy's autobiographical account of the birth and struggles of the civil rights movement is inspirational and deeply moving. With Martin Luther King Jr., his closest colleague, he helped organize the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott and the 1965 march in Selma, Ala.; he and King went north to Chicago in 1966, where they battled Mayor Richard Daley and found racism as endemic and deep-rooted as in the South. He cradled King in his arms when the latter was assassinated in Memphis. Son of a stern, righth- ous farmer father, Abernathy became a Baptist pastor after fighting in WW II with a segregated platoon. In a voice at once down-to-earth and eloquent, he recounts protests, jailings and bombings in Birmingham, St. Augustine, Washington, Charleston and elsewhere. He defends his support of Reagan's 1980 presidential bid, as well as his support, in the next two elections, for Jesse Jackson. Reading this engrossing, powerful memoir-as-history will force white Americans to confront the legacy of racism. Abernathy conveys a sense of how the civil rights movement discovered its tactics and direction in response to individual situations. Photos.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0060161922
• ISBN 13: 9780060161927
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 638