I am so happy that Renee finally took the time to put her thoughts, feelings, and heart about her father into print, and I say this because we grew up as next door neighbors, and her family and my family were akin to being family, and it made my heart joyful, especially for Renee when during Andrew Young's speech in 2013, he truthfully stated that if it had not been for Rev. Charles Billups, the march in Birmingham would not have been successful because when the hoses and the dogs came out--everyone scrambled--including him, but that it was Charles Billups who knelt down and said that he didn't come to run away, and everyone started slowly coming back to join him.
I can also vividly remember the last time that I saw Rev. Billups, which was when he returned to Birmingham a month or so before his death, and I remember it quite vividly because he basically ran into the house smiling and calling my parents' names, and then he saw me laying on top of my parent's bed reading a book, and he hugged me, and told me to never stop reading; never give up; and never, ever believe that I could not reach any goals in life that I set for myself...and I haven't, and when I look at those degrees on my wall, and those of my sisters and so many other friends who lived in our neighborhood and were inspired by him and Rev. Gardner...I think of Rev. Billups and say to myself..Well Done.
This book brought back so many memories, the good, the bad, as well as the ugly..and it also makes me think back to watching a KKK Meeting from my great-aunt's porch in Alberta City, which was just a mile of so from Tuscaloosa, a week or so after the death of Medgar Evers over in Mississippi..and this book also made me think about how along with my elementary school librarian, my cousin and another classmate, we almost became victims while on the way back from a conference in Montgomery when our car broke down.
Rev. Billups faced obstacles at every step, even among some who looked like him...but he never faltered, and he always encouraged everyone to realize that we earned the right to know that we were also nothing less than every other American, regardless of color, and to me, he was a Hero---not of many words--but of numerous actions of bravery, and I know that Mrs. Inez, his mother, who lived next to us before her death when I was around six years old, would be so proud of Rev. Billups-and Renee--who, to me,should have written this book long ago.
There are many untold stories of the real heroes, who stood behind Dr. King, but, and to me, the Super Hero knelt and showed courage, pride, and endurance--when others ran...but came back as they sang..."I Ain't Gone Let Nobody Turn Us Around...and this, to me, is why Dr. King, himself, admired Rev. Charles Billups, who led the real foot soldiers on the front line in Birmingham, Alabama...and I will always, like Renee, remember Andrew Young's acknowledgement thereof.
This is a good book, and I thank her.
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About the author
These are the histories that our nation desperately needs right now
Rene Billups Baker (with Keith D. Miller) provides readers with a firsthand account of the Birmingham struggle, which was so vital to the strategies and successes of the larger Black Freedom Movement. Billups Baker’s memoir grants readers an introduction to her father, Charles Billups, an American hero whose activism warrants much further study. She imbues civil rights history with much-needed humanity, vividly compelling readers to experience the toll that civil rights activism exacted from devoted families—the ever-present fear of Klansmen’s beatings, bombs, and bullets; the pain of witnessing a parent’s arrest; the confusion and longing wrought by wrongful imprisonment. What lasting effect does such childhood trauma have upon adults? How can our nation heal from wounds we refuse to acknowledge, much less treat? Here Billups Baker raises these difficult questions and proffers thoughtful answers drawn from the crucible of her experience. These are the histories that our nation desperately needs right now. Histories that demonstrate the complexity of struggle, that recover previously overlooked participants, and that are bravely told by survivors, who have overcome trauma’s propensity to silence. “Sometimes I would be my daddy’s mouthpiece,” remembers Billups Baker. How thankful are we that she can still give voice to Charles Billups’ story and, in doing so, compel us all to rethink the movement we thought we knew. —Maegan Parker Brooks, Willamette University; author of A Voice that Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Struggle; co-editor of The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 24, 2019
- Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2019
Rene Billups Baker (with Keith D. Miller) provides readers with a firsthand account of the Birmingham struggle, which was so vital to the strategies and successes of the larger Black Freedom Movement. Billups Baker’s memoir grants readers an introduction to her father, Charles Billups, an American hero whose activism warrants much further study. She imbues civil rights history with much-needed humanity, vividly compelling readers to experience the toll that civil rights activism exacted from devoted families—the ever-present fear of Klansmen’s beatings, bombs, and bullets; the pain of witnessing a parent’s arrest; the confusion and longing wrought by wrongful imprisonment. What lasting effect does such childhood trauma have upon adults? How can our nation heal from wounds we refuse to acknowledge, much less treat? Here Billups Baker raises these difficult questions and proffers thoughtful answers drawn from the crucible of her experience. These are the histories that our nation desperately needs right now. Histories that demonstrate the complexity of struggle, that recover previously overlooked participants, and that are bravely told by survivors, who have overcome trauma’s propensity to silence. “Sometimes I would be my daddy’s mouthpiece,” remembers Billups Baker. How thankful are we that she can still give voice to Charles Billups’ story and, in doing so, compel us all to rethink the movement we thought we knew.
These are the histories that our nation desperately needs right now
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2019
—Maegan Parker Brooks, Willamette University; author of A Voice that Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Struggle; co-editor of The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is
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- Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2019
- Reviewed in the United States on March 25, 2019
