- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Basic Books (17 Mar 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0465044182
- ISBN-13: 978-0465044184
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14.7 x 2.8 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 3,580,028 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Last Days
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
This devastating and uncompromising memoir explores how good Christian folk acquiesced to the terror of the KKK, and how the author's prominent minister father eventually found the courage to share in the vision of a New South. Seeking to come to terms with the haunting memories of his childhood in the deep South-Charles Marsh has crafted a memoir of small-town Southern life caught up in the whirlwind of the Civil Rights movement. As minister of the First Baptist Church in Laurel, Mississippi, Charles Marsh's father Bob Marsh, was a prominent man who was beloved by the community. But Laurel was also home to Sam Bowers, the Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Mississippi KKK and the director of their daily, unchallenged installments of terror and misery. Bowers was known and tolerated by the entire white community of Laurel. This included Bob Marsh, who struggled to do the right thing while reeling between righteous indignation and moral torpor, only slowly awakening to fear, suffering, and guilt over his unwillingness to take a public stand against Bowers. At the same time, The Last Days examines the collision of worlds once divided-white Protestant conservatism, the African American struggle for civil rights, and late 1960s counter culture-that propelled the dramatic changes in everyday life in a small Southern town.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
First Sentence
One spring afternoon in 1967, when the warm Alabama air was perfumed with honeysuckle and scuppernong, my father and I were walking along a dirt path through fields of green wire grass. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
One spring afternoon in 1967, when the warm Alabama air was perfumed with honeysuckle and scuppernong, my father and I were walking along a dirt path through fields of green wire grass. Read the first page
Explore More
Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Customer Reviews
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.co.uk.
5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
5 reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Last Days by Charles Marsh
26 Mar 2001
Format:Hardcover
Last Days, by Charles Marsh, is a memoir about the author's boyhood days in Laurel, Mississippi in the late 1960's. The author's description of his own emotional life during this period is moving-- often endearing, sometimes funny, and occassionally painful. What makes this memoir exceptional is the skill with which Dr. Marsh artfully weaves his feelings into the landscape of his own religious life and the community's distress in the midst of the Civil Rights movement. We are guided through the horrifying crimes of the KKK and the trials that followed (Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers is from Laurel and this makes the setting all the more salient), as well as the beginnings of desegregation in the schools-- more than a decade after Brown vs. the Board of Education. All this (and more) is placed in the context of the younger Marsh's relationship with his father, a charismatic and successful Baptist minister. The book gives the sense that the author is using it as a mechanism to come to terms with his father's role as a community leader during this particularly ugly period in American history. By the end, his father is clearly on the side of good, and the author closes by leaving the impression that he, a youngster in his camp bunk, had come to a peaceful resolution. My sense, however, was that if he indeed had found such peace, he would never have been compelled to write such a powerful memoir. The book is nothing short of absorbing. I found it difficult to put down. My only complaint is that at times the author refers to people and events I'd never heard of, though I was able to follow the storyline without actually going to look any of them up. I am pleased to say that I did get all of the references to The Beverly Hillbillies. Last Days is a short book with a number of complex agendas, both personal and historical. It was an ambitious task for a writer to take on, and Charles Marsh does a laudable job in meeting this challenge.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Warm Family Memoir of the End of Jim Crow
10 Aug 2001
Format:Hardcover
In 1968, in the little town of Laurel, Mississippi, the Jaycees wished to honor an exemplary citizen and one of their own, Clifford Wilson, a man of many civic accomplishments. The ceremony was at a special banquet, and the Reverend Bob Marsh, a local Baptist preacher, was asked to present the award. Wilson got a bronze plaque, and gave an acceptance speech promising continuing service to the people of Laurel. There were photographs and smiles, and the satisfied crowd went home. An hour later, Clifford Wilson was arrested for the murder of a black man named Vernon Dahmer; others of his Klan buddies were also arrested. They had burned down Dahmers house and fired into the flames as he tried to defend his family. Reverend Marsh was disgusted that he had been fooled into recognizing Wilson. Charles Marsh, the Reverends son, tells the story of his fathers shame in _The Last Days: A Sons Story of Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of the New South_ (Basic Books). The author moved with his family to Laurel in 1967, and was there for some of the most vile acts of racism, but was also there when the schools were integrated, so this is a valuable and unique memoir of a time when enormous changes were occurring in the south. Neither liberal nor bigot, the Reverend Marsh confronts his hypocrisy and makes a difference.
_The Last Days_ is a loving look at a father who was a devoted minister, and a mother who was a devoted ministers wife, trying to make sense out of a confusing time of turmoil. The time does seem so distant now, and it is instructive to have the author give us details of the period. The Rev. Marsh stayed and did his part to help. It would make a good TV movie if he had been more of an Atticus Finch from _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and it would be dramatic if he stood on the church steps in a climax to confront the men in white hoods and robes. Marshs heroism was parceled out in smaller steps, such as the time in 1970 when a girl from his church brought a friend, a black girl, to the service. The deacons wanted to eject the unwelcome visitor, but Marsh would not permit it; and then they insisted on an apology to the congregation, but Marsh did not give one. He did, however, work to keep the community from being split by integration.
_The Last Days_ is not just about growing up in a time of changing race relations, but also is simply about growing up. There is a fondness for family within these pages that makes the racial chill and terror stand out starkly. The author has admiration for his parents who in some of the nations most turbulent times... held on tight to the Old Story and refused incivility the final word. Family members ought to be very proud of this son and his fine book. The Klan was not triumphant, and healing was begun; a harrowing and unforgettable story ends in redemption and hope.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
A warm and honest memoir
15 Feb 2002
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Marsh grew up in Mississippi during the 1960s, the only child in a family who were neither racist nor vocal civil rights advocates. Theirs is a story rarely heard because it is not one of dramatic heroism or tragedy. Yet it's the real-life story of many of us who grew up in the deep south during that era.
Marsh has a gift for remembering the humorous detail. His story-telling skills are sharp and biting. We can see Laurel, Miss., close-up through a child's eyes. Yet those things we see are presented with the clarity gained from decades of maturity and reflexion.
I know a couple of people who are contemporaries of the author, who grew up in his hometown and church. After I told them how much I enjoyed the book and how the book makes Laurel seem like a nice place, they seemed dumbfounded. They said that folks in Laurel were upset with how the town is presented. I can understand why they might be upset by some of the events and people Marsh recalls, but I never perceived any hostility the author has towards Laurel. Rather, the majority of people and the town itself serve as a pleasant balance to the few evil people and events which take place.
Not quite told with the wit and timing of a Ferrol Sams fictionalized memoir (Run With the Horsemen, for example), The Last Days still mines an earlier South (although Sams' era is the 30s-40s) and discovers treasures in the most humble of places: the home, the school, the church, the playing field. Another book that comes to mind is Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys (October Sky) with its deep yet subtle insight into the relationship (good and bad) of father and son.
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > United States
- Books > Biography > Religious > Christianity
- Books > Biography > Social & Health Issues > Racism
- Books > History > Religious History > Christianity
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
