AMERICUS — Whenever the weather starts to change in the fall, I think about reading “Wuthering Heights” again; best wait until the dark days of January or February to take that one on. It’s one of the best love stories ever written and no movie or film adaptation ever comes close to how I imagine the characters and the locations in my own mind. Isn’t that one of reading’s greatest gifts — firing the imagination?

OK, so let’s keep on course with the non-fiction pledge I made for myself this year. I have further backslid, but will write about that at another time.

It’s strange how some of the books I read run along the same subject matter, or related at least. I’ve had some time off recently and more time for leisurely reading. Hope you enjoy reading about it.

• “Cultivating Race: The Expansion of Slavery in Georgia 1750-1860” — Watson W. Jennison — The University Press of Kentucky — 2012

I believe I heard about this book on Likethedew.com which is a wonderful compendium of southern literature, culture and politics. They send me my “Morning Dews” daily and I often troll the depths for good reading. It is often very rewarding as in this case.

If you enjoy history, you’ll love this book, written by an associate professor of African-American history at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Jennison traces the history of slavery from the American Revolution all the way up to the Civil War. In his introduction, he writes, “Georgia serves as a microcosm for the development of the cotton South.”

Further, he explains that with the rise of cotton cultivation in the early 19th century , the balance of power in the state shifted from the coastal elite to the upcountry whites who exerted control over government, thus changing the conventions of slavery.

This is a story of turmoil, politics, economics, morals as well as the legends of a people, three actually: the black race and the white race with a whole lot of Native American influence in the mix.

Reading more like an exciting drama than history, the book holds the reader’s attention. I expanded my own knowledge of slavery by reading this book. I wonder if slavery is even mentioned in the study of Georgia history in schools anymore.

Jennison’s excellent book also includes meaty notes, an extensive bibliography and a convenient index.

The word “scholarly” rules and I highly recommend this book to students and teachers, as well as casual historians.

It’s an eye-opener.

• “From Southern Wrongs to Civil Rights: The Memoir of a White Civil Rights Activist” — Sara Mitchell Parsons — The University of Alabama Press — 2000

I sought out this book because its author and her husband were  friends of my parents. I never had the pleasure of meeting Sara Parsons but I met her husband Tom, her second husband. Her first husband wasn’t comfortable being married to an intelligent, forward-thinking, socially conscious woman who was unafraid to stand up for her beliefs.

This is the intensely personal story of a young, white Southern woman, wife and mother, who realizes early on that she has a social conscience. Through her work with the Atlanta League of Women Voters, Sara Mitchell was involved in the struggle to keep public schools open, and to integrate them. These forerunners realized that without a sound public school system, Atlanta would never thrive economically. The same goes for any community, now as then.

After much deliberation, Sara Mitchell decided to seek election to the Atlanta Board of Education. At first, her husband was supportive. She won the election.

But her public service widened the divide between her beliefs and those of her businessman husband. They divorced in 1966, and she sought reelection to her second term. She won again.

She was a force to be reckoned with, alright. Atlanta Mayor Ivan Allen once referred to her as “one of the most dangerous women in Atlanta.” She was fearless.

Shunned by many of her old “society” friends, Sara Mitchell continued her work for public education through the stormy years during desegregation.

In 1968, she met Tom Parsons from California (through whom my parents met Sara). She resigned from the Board and they moved to California. In later years, they returned to Atlanta to make their home.

While I never had the pleasure of meeting Sara, I did meet Tom in 2008, at an 8th Air Force reunion in Savannah with my folks. Everyone who knows Sara Mitchell Parsons speaks of her beauty, her intelligence and her courage. Unfortunately it is too late for me to ever meet this great woman. She died in July 2011, at the age of 99. Tom died May 10, 2012. But she leaves in addition to this fine book, a legacy of strength and principle and of course, her family. I learned in Tom’s obituary that Sara was Humboldt County's first female supervisor (1976-80). That did not surprise me.

• “Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School — Ahamus Rahman Khan — Princeton University Press — 2011

I found this book at Amazon and it sounded like an appealing subject. It is.

Khan, who was student at the prestigious St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., later came back to teach at his alma mater.

Getting into St. Paul’s School is extremely competitive and once in, there’s the constant pressure to be the best: the highest GPA, the highest honors, the most extra-curricular activities, etc. All this is to insure entry into an Ivy League school.

Khan writes in his introduction that he’s learned three lessons of privilege that students learn at St. Paul’s.

— Hierarchies are natural and can be treated like ladders not ceilings. While students at this elite school recognize their good fortune, they stress hard work and talent when explaining that.

— Experiences matter. Since many of St. Paul’s student come from privileged backgrounds, adjusting to life at school is difficult. They learn soon that if they come in acting as if they know it all, they are rejected by others. They must learn that there’s a shift from the old elite “who you are” to the new elite, “what you’ve done.” In other words, as Khan says, “Privilege is not something you are born with; it is something you learn to develop and cultivate.”

— Privilege means being at ease, no matter the context. This means students learn how to carry themselves so they are comfortable in any situation.

Khan uses some real students in this book, demonstrating how cruel young people can be to one another, how even kids from the most modest of backgrounds can succeed in the elitist world of St. Paul’s School, and also how students learn the maneuver the way things are there.

This book is the result of painstaking psychological and sociological research, and rewards the reader in the end.

• “Audition — A Memoir” — Barbara Walters — Alfred A. Knopf — 2008

Question: What’s the best way to get a top-notch publishing house interested in your book?

Answer: Be a ground-breaking journalist for several decades.

When this book was first launched, it was everywhere and talked about incessantly on the talk-show circuit, including Oprah Winfrey’s show.

I found it at the Dollar Tree a few years later.

Being a woman journalist myself, I’ve always admired Walters. She shattered the glass ceiling for women journalists and managed to be granted audiences with noted figures when seemingly no one else could.

What was so compelling to me about her memoir, however, was the background of her personal life. Her childhood was not easy and neither was her life trying to raise a daughter and trot all over the globe simultaneously. But she did it, and did it well.

The stories she tells of the people she’s interviewed over her career hold the reader’s interest and illuminate Walters’ abilities to get at the real story. She was not afraid to ask “the hard questions.”

She covered such legendaries as Judy Garland, Elizabeth Taylor, Bing Crosby, Princess Diana, Truman Capote, Rose Kennedy, Princess Grace, Dean Rusk, Golda Meir, Henry Kissinger, Prince Philip, Jackie Kennedy (very interesting encounter in India), Indira Ghandi, Andrew Wyeth, Yasir Arafat (whose pilot accidentally landed in Americus back in the mid-’90s), King Hussein and Queen Noor, the shah of Iran, Moshe Dyan, Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, Mu’ammar Qaddafi, Fidel Castro (REALLY interesting story), Margaret Thatcher, Jiang Zemin, Hugo Chavez, Norman Schwartzkoph and the Dalai Lama (with whom she rubbed noses), Claus von Bulow, Robert Blake, Jean Harris, Mark David Chapman, the Menendez brothers, Patricia Hearst, and a host of others, famous and infamous, and of course U.S. presidents and other first ladies.

Her stories are compelling and packed with detail.

She dated men such as Kissinger and Alan Greenspan, among others. She was on the invitation lists of the well-heeled and famous here and abroad. She married twice. She fought her way up the ladder in her industry and paved the way for women in television forever.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this meaty book.



Beth Alston, an award-winning journalist, is executive editor of the Americus Times-Recorder. Contact her at 229-924-2751, ext. 1529 or beth.alston@gaflnews.com or read her other columns at www.americustimesrecorder.com