Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Son (Deep South Books)

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Summary: Great Perspective of the South during a Tumultous Time
Review: I decided to read this book for purely personal motives. Having been raised in California by a father who grew up in Birmingham in the early twenties and thirties, I had a desire to understand this man, my father, who seemed at times to have such radical world views. Reading Paul Hemphill's story, specifically the retelling of details of growing up in a working class family, including the bigoted views his father held, helped me to understand the world that molded many whites prior to the civil rights movement. When chosing this book, I wasn't looking for a dry detailed history but rather an insiders view of what this world of "Birmingham, Alabama" must have been like growing up. Why it created such biogtry? And How can we continue to change? Paul Hemphill, through this book, helped me to understand, what kind of a world Birmingham was, and how it shaped and molded the people who grew up there.

Rating:
Summary: Probes the ethnic relationships in Birmingham
Review: In 1963 Alabama was the site of racial violence: native Hemphill decides here to return to his hometown, to come to terms with his family and life. Leaving Birmingham probes the ethnic relationships in Birmingham past and present, providing an intriguing analysis of the tensions and present-day life.

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Summary: Not Just For Southerners
Review: The reader should note that this book is not a history, but an honest reminiscence by the author. Paul Hemphill was born and raised in a Birmingham that no longer exists, and his story is a sentimental, though often melancholy, remembrance of his journey from childhood to an adulthood marked by his departure from his native city. Unlike other native sons, such as Roy Blount and Howell Raines, who long ago moved to New York and have spent the majority of their adult lives apologizing for having been born in the South, Hemphill offers the reader a painfully honest autobiography that parallels the mutually exclusive forces of change and retrenchment within Birmingham before and after World War II. He presents an insightful glimpse of a city unique in the South, a city created atop one of the richest iron ore deposits in the country, with no antebellum, gentrified past, a tough, muscular city. It is a Birmingham as it truly was, a city divided not in two parts, but three: the Birmingham of poor, legally segregated blacks, the Birmingham of working-class whites who manned the steel, iron and coke factories during their height, and the Birmingham of the Mountain Brook overseers, the representatives of the absentee landlords who owned these factories, the men of a separate community entirely, who publicly stayed above the fray of civil rights strife, all the while stoking and manipulating the blue collar whites to whom civil rights appeared a supreme threat. It was into such a working-class family that Hemphill was born. His descriptions of his hard-working, traditionalist father, his mother and the neighborhood in which he grew up, are perhaps the finest elements of the book. It is evident that this was no easy book for Hemphill to write. He must counter-balance the admiration he holds for his parents and the joys of his childhood, with the ultimate revulsion he felt in adulthood toward a civilization predisposed all along toward heightened brutality. It is not only his personal journey, but the journey of Birmingham from "the Magic City" to "Bad Birmingham"; the journey of Bull Connor from "voice of the Barons" to the "voice of legalized segregation". Hemphill witnessed all of this and it is sadness, not cold judgement, that pervades this book and sets it apart from the many other books written about that city and that time. This reviewer highly recommends this book to anyone who has an interest in gaining a personal perspective of the Birmingham of mid-20th Century America.

Rating:
Summary: Great Perspective of the South during a Tumultous Time
Review: This book was required reading for my Civil Rights class. Although at times a bit too detailed and tangent prone, Hemphill's style is very gripping and kept my attention. The way in which the formation and development of Birmingham is disussed, enterpreted, and explained is superb. Hemphill does an excellent job of juxtaposing the racial, economic, and social climate that evolved and gripped the city of Birmingham throughout the years. I would consider this autobiography of sorts a must read for any person interested in issues pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement. Just get through the few dry parts, the rest is well worth the read!

Rating:
Summary: A Student's Perspective
Review: This book was required reading for my Civil Rights class. Although at times a bit too detailed and tangent prone, Hemphill's style is very gripping and kept my attention. The way in which the formation and development of Birmingham is disussed, enterpreted, and explained is superb. Hemphill does an excellent job of juxtaposing the racial, economic, and social climate that evolved and gripped the city of Birmingham throughout the years. I would consider this autobiography of sorts a must read for any person interested in issues pertaining to the Civil Rights Movement. Just get through the few dry parts, the rest is well worth the read!