Crossing The Lines
by Richard Doster
Jack Hall, a sportswriter for the Atlanta Constitution, is a contented Southerner – until, across the pages of the nation’s newspapers – the photos begin to appear: of bombed out "Negro" churches, of black schoolchildren swarmed by angry white mobs, of Thurmond, Talmadge, and Russell, standing before gold-domed buildings, vowing that "our way of life" will never change.
With each image, Jack’s discomfort grows until, in September 1957, the pain becomes unbearable. That’s when one image, in one small newspaper – of a white girl screaming insults at her black classmate – ignites a new mission. Jack, so thoroughly grieved by the now famous photo of Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan, is determined to show the world the South he loves.
But along the way, he can’t escape plain truths:
- That in the era when Harper Lee is crafting her work of genius, Martin Luther King pleads for racial reconciliation in the state next door.
- That during the days when Sam Phillips is producing the music of Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and B.B. King – black students in Greensboro and Nashville are jailed for ordering coffee at the Woolworth’s lunch counter.
- As Flannery O’Connor pens enduring works of fiction, Georgia governor Marvin Griffin vows to stop the Sugar Bowl – to prevent Georgia Tech from playing a Pittsburgh team that fields a Negro player, The region Jack loves is, at the same time, creating the best of the world’s culture – and the worst. And it’s that paradox that sends Jack’s life down unexpected paths.
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Richard Doster
Crossing The Lines
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