Lemuria Bookstore Blog

The Civil Rights Movement began when Rosa Parks, a middle-aged seamstress who was simply tired after a long day at work, refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. The ensuing bus boycott lifted a young minister, Martin Luther King Jr., to become the leader of a movement to gain civil [...]

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With the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders next week in Jackson, I thought I would share a couple of books with you about the Civil Rights Era here in Mississippi and nationwide. Breach of Peace: Portraits of the 1961 Mississippi Freedom Riders by Eric Etheridge Eric, a native Mississippian, has put [...]

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Having grown up in Mississippi, I think I tend to forget that less than 50 years ago this place was, for so many people, truly nightmarish.  It really is hard to believe. Last night Bruce Watson came and talked about his new book, Freedom Summer, written specifically about the summer of 1964. This was the [...]

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Willie McGee’s story wouldn’t have been very unusual were it but for a few factors.  After all, he was black, and it was Mississippi, and it was 1945, and he was accused – then quickly convicted – of raping a white woman. There were allegations of an affair, with the woman pointing the finger in [...]

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There’s a tricky and special type of book out there that I don’t often completely trust; a certain type of nonfiction, the kind that recounts real-life events with a little too much zeal.  It’s a fine line to walk, that one between historical fiction and dramatic nonfiction, and I guess that makes me skeptical of [...]

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Check out Mississippi Remixed on MPB Thursday night at 8 o’clock. Mississippi ReMixed is a documentary about the current state of race relations in Mississippi. Mississippi Remixed tells the personal story of Canadian, Myra Ottewell, who returns to her birthplace in Jackson, Mississippi determined to celebrate the great racial transformations in the state since the [...]

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Gene Dattel will be signing his new book, Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power, today, November 4, at 5 pm. Dattel grew up in the cotton country of the Mississippi Delta and studied history at Yale and law at Vanderbilt.  He then embarked on a twenty-year career [...]

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I think it was about two years ago that Tony Horwitz was last at Lemuria. I had just started working here and was at the reading. I was quickly impressed with his candor and knowledge. I could have listened to him talk all day! I purchased A Voyage Long and Strange and my boyfriend read [...]

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For those of you who came up to Lemuria when Alex Alston and James Dickerson were here, there are several events coming up involving civil rights issues that you might be interested in.  Charles Eagles will be here tonight at five o’clock, signing his book The Price of Defiance.  After he signs, we’ll all head [...]

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Alex A. Alston, Jr., former president of the Mississippi State Bar Association and long time friend and journalist James L. Dickerson will be signing their new book, Devil’s Sanctuary: An Eyewitness History of the Mississippi Hate Crimes this afternoon, Thursday, July 9, at Lemuria. Having had a chance to peruse this informative and challenging book, [...]

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