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 rights for southern blacks. Using the philosophical principles of non-violence he had learned from Gandhi, King led a series of large-scale marches and protest campaigns, including the historic March on Washington during which he gave his stirring “I Have a Dream” speech. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of the following year, the movement finally achieved its goal of securing racial equality in the South.

This popular version of the Civil Rights Movement, enshrined in public memory and school curriculum around the country, has come under attack by a new generation of historians who have sought to add greater complexity to the heroic story of the civil rights struggle. In Civil Rights History from the Ground Up: Local Struggles, a National Movement, Emilye Crosby has compiled a series of essays from this group of revisionist scholars who argue that the civil rights movement has been misunderstood by most Americans.

While not questioning the importance of national leaders like King, they have delved deeper to see how the movement played out in the various counties across the South. These historians argue, quite persuasively, that this local perspective reveals the flaws and simplicity of the popular narrative of the movement.

For example, take the notion of non-violence, that most sacred principle of King and his followers. In her essay “It Wasn’t the Wild West,” Crosby points out that most African Americans in the South did not subscribe to the philosophical principles of Gandhi, but rather used non-violence as a tactic, if at all, while always reserving the right to defend themselves against white violence. In places like rural Mississippi, gun ownership was common among blacks and whites, and advancements in civil rights were always played out against this mutually understood fact.

Perhaps the best argument about the poverty of our public understanding of the Civil Rights Movement comes in Jeanne Theoharis’ essay about Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King. These two iconic figures, who died just a few months apart in 2005 and 2006, received unprecedented public memorials. But in both cases, most of their careers were ignored in the numerous tributes and eulogies.

In popular memory, Parks was just a tired woman who did not want to give up her seat; in reality she was a long-standing activist, who had been trained at the Highlander Folk School and whose commitment to racial justice guided her life and career until her death.

Coretta Scott King was not simply a dutiful wife, but rather was a longtime peace activist who pushed her husband to come out against the Vietnam War. While she ended her own autobiography with her husband’s death, Coretta spent the next four decades continuing to fight against injustice and war. When looked at closely, the careers of these celebrated women are far more compelling that the bit parts they are given in the civil rights narrative.

Also, as these scholars show, the civil rights timeline is all wrong. Instead of the movement essentially ending with the landmark legislation passed in 1964 and ’65, in many places, the struggle for freedom was just getting started then. Both Crosby and J. Todd Moye show that public challenges to white supremacy only begin in places like Claiborne and Sunflower County, Mississippi after President Johnson signs the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts. It was all well and good for congress and the president to pass these laws, but it was up to what John Dittmer calls “local people” to ensure that they would be enforced in the rural parts of the Deep South.

Also, these scholars argue that the movement did not end in the 1960s, or even the 1970s. To them, the struggle for racial justice continues today, even in an era where Barack Obama was elected president. As one learns from this book, don’t just look at the top, but examine the counties and towns across the country, where the wide disparities in income and education between blacks and whites continue.

In the end, Crosby and her colleagues seek to change the way the civil rights movement is taught and understood in America. Crosby points to the seminal PBS documentary “Eyes on the Prize” as an example of how to incorporate local people and their stories into the history of the movement. Like this documentary series, Crosby and her colleagues seek to reach out beyond the ivory tower and reshape the popular narrative with the local stories they have gathered.

To this end, Civil Rights History From the Ground Up is a good start. Its essays, both engaging and readable, challenge the reader to rethink their assumptions about the movement and to understand that the story is much more complicated and interesting that they ever imagined.

Join us Tuesday evening at 5.30 for a visit with Emilye Crosby, author of Civil Rights History from the Ground Up.

Thank you to Dr. Stuart Rockoff for kindly sharing his review with Lemuria Blog. He currently serves as the Vice-President of the Southern Jewish Historical Society and is working on a general history of Jewish life in the South.

Working at Lemuria, we’re privileged to keep abreast of the publishing world; we get to read a book sometimes months before its release – many of us read The Help early and were already excited when Kathryn came for her first signing minutes, it seemed, after it appeared on the shelves.

We’re also enthusiastic book collectors; we salivate over signed first editions of the old standbys as well as those of promising new authors – this year, among many others, I’ve collected signed firsts of Tea Obreht’s debut The Tiger’s Wife (we sold out of the signed copies) and Geraldine Brooks’s latest Caleb’s Crossing (still available!).

I am a fanatic book collector, yes, but I was first simply a reader. So in the midst of reading all the newest books, I mix in the old ones I’ve always wanted to read. I get them in paperback, and I like to abuse them. Well, as much as it’s possible for me to abuse a book. I just finished The World According to Garp on the Fourth, and the copy ended up looking not read. But sometimes I do this while I’m reading a paperback:

and it’s extremely satisfying. I just enjoy books. I enjoy John Irving too, can’t tell you how much. I haven’t read anything new of his, just the old big ones. They’re some tasty books.

Now I’m reading Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. I’d never read anything by him, and it was beginning to make me ashamed. I love it so far; I was just in New Orleans at the end of June, and because it was my third visit I’ve started to remember my way around, recognizing neighborhoods, able to picture where Magazine is in relation to Elysian Fields, which is fun when reading Percy’s novel.

Several of us have read through many of Haruki Murakami’s books. Kaycie’s expressed Murakami love, I recently devoured The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, I think Joe’s reading through them all in order. I may read Kafka on the Shore after I finish The Moviegoer.

During the summer, whether relaxing in the sun on the beach or in the backyard, isn’t greasing up a paperback with sweat and sunscreen is just the greatest? Come in, if you can, for more summer paperback recommendations. We’ll set you up.

Driving Excellence: Transforming your Organization’s Culture and Achieve Revolutionary Results

by Mark Aesch (Hyperion, 2011)

Our recession has pointed out to struggling businesses that in case you didn’t already know it, your business is broken.

You can’t do things the old way and survive. As Dylan used to say, “The times they are a changin’.”

We can’t fix our organizations without people and their willpower to set aside the status quo, take risks and do things differently. Generally, improvements in employee work is either selfishly motivated to save their jobs or organizationally motivated to operate more productively.

Mark Aesch’s fine book is about creating a new business culture for his business, basically a city-owned bus business. His basis of success lies in creating a culture of non-ego, eliminating competition within the team. My take on his actions is to turn the individual egos of the team members toward developing the team ego into a strong unit. The team should be focused on customer benefits rather than what I call “entitled neurosis” or the neurotic ego demands of employees.

When I picked up Driving Excellence, I never thought I would be interested in reading a book about a city bus transit system and I didn’t think that I would finish it. I was really surprised. Mark’s story is inspiring and his experiences can be influential if you want to transform your own business.

In April 2004, Mark Aesch was appointed the CEO of Rochester Genesee Regional Transportation Authority (RGRTA) and was confronted with a $27.5 million deficit. Two years later RGRTA has a $19.7 million surplus and its fares are the lowest they’ve been since 1991. Ridership has increased by 20% and customer satisfaction has never been higher.

Mark’s story takes him to the front lines of war with the union’s self-centered demands and their lack of customer service interest. His hard-edged story of these conflicts demonstrate his strength of character and dedication to the improvement through honest dialogue. The presence to continue to make the right decisions to benefit the whole. His battle took him from the union to the politicians–individuals who live by their votes rather than doing right-minded work directed toward efficiency.

Mark’s story is told directly without inflating himself or his ability to succeed. While reading I was encouraged to analyze our bookstore and its chemistry, even while studying the bus business, which I think is a testimony for his book and his work efforts.

Success for a small business requires team ego. Success is too difficult if all employees do not pursue one goal–the best customer service. Mark moved me so much with his story that I ordered four copies for my staff to study and pass around. By reading Mark’s influential book I hope Lemuria’s drive to excellence will achieve the goal of giving Jackson a top-notch local community bookstore. We don’t want to fall into the pitfall of entitled customer support; We want to earn our customers’ business. Lemuria will live or die by our choices. Lemuria needs to earn our community’s support and I hope we are up to the task. Mark, learning from your book, we appreciate the challenge.

Lately I’ve been having the urge to re-read a few books. This isn’t something that I do often because, quite frankly, I’ve got too many unread books living on my shelves. But sometimes you just want to hear a good story again.  Or maybe re-reading a certain book isn’t so much about the story but about getting back that feeling of however your life was going the first time you read it.

Right now I’m a little stressed out about all of the graduate loans I’m about to take out, signing the lease on an apartment in a city where I don’t know anyone, and packing up to move across the ocean.  All big exciting things, for sure, but needless to say I’ve given more than one longing glance at the novels that I loved last summer when I was first working at the bookstore with no big plans to put into action, only possibilities.  I could use a little dose of carefree right about now.

So the books of last summer that have been particularly drawn to (as you’ve probably guessed by the covers featured) have been Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry and Aimee Bender’s The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake.  You can read some of my co-worker’s takes on these two wonderful novels here, here, and here.

What are some of the books that you find yourself drawn to over and over again?  Is it solely for the story or maybe for a bit of comfort too?  -Kaycie

Customers have been asking us (with increasing frequency) what we think about the new e-readers. Our typical response is that while devices like the Nook, Kindle, or iBook have their place, in most cases we prefer having a real, physical bookshelf and the experience of reading a physical book. We believe that there’s room in the industry for both reading experiences – e-readers are likely to increase in popularity, and may replace certain segments of the traditional book market (textbooks, mass-market mysteries and thrillers, and other books with a defined audience and rapid publishing schedule), but there will remain a customer for whom the book is not merely a text-delivery device, but also an art object, something to be enjoyed for what it is, not what it does.

I think I’ve been willing to be a little generous about the e-reader threat because, when it comes down to it, I think they are kind of cool. It’s an interesting product, with huge potential. E-readers can do a lot of things that books can’t; I’m just not convinced that e-readers can do everything that a book can.

When I saw the following Amazon ads, however, I had to wonder if we’re not being too polite. The ad campaign is entitled, “Friends.”

Do you feel like your loyalty to physical books can be summed up in the act of dog-earing pages? Doesn’t that feel like a bit of a straw-man? There are lots of great things about books: the dust-jacket design, the sturdy feel of the boards, the creaminess of the paper, the font selected to fit the author’s voice, the arrangement of spines on your shelf, that moment when you stand in front of your bookshelves and scan the titles, searching for the right book or simply admiring them all. I’ve never dog-eared a page in my life*, and I’m a bit insulted that Amazon believes that dog-eared pages encapsulate the very best of my book experience.

*I know plenty of readers do, in fact, dog-ear their pages, and that is their (and your) right. But I remember feeling slightly guilty about highlighting and underlining even in my school textbooks, and I find no compelling reason to deface or damage my own books now. There’s a reason we put a bookmark in each book you take home.

Books in sixty seconds is an amazing thing. I can’t argue with that.

But there are plenty of things that I find amazing, and yet, still limited and greatly flawed. McDonald’s is an amazing restaurant and business model. Almost anywhere in the world, you can find the affordable, familiar, and convenient Big Mac. But I don’t believe that just because McDonald’s is amazing at what it does, that it means it is also superior to other restaurants or that it can replace all other eating experiences. If anything, the oversaturation of fast food has produced a desire to return to some kind of pre-McDonald’s meal: farmer’s markets, homegrown vegetables, locally-owned restaurants, food made not to maximize profit but to be enjoyed as food, to be shared as an experience.

The ad also glosses over some important questions. How did the girl (and guy) find out about the new book? From friends? From advertisements? Is it an author with whom they are already familiar? Good books will always be spread by word of mouth, but does the proliferation of e-books help or harm the reader’s ability to find the book that wasn’t marked from birth for the bestseller’s list?

Five years down the road, will the Kindle remind you of the time you met the author? Can you flip it open and re-read a note the author wrote for you? Can it record the author’s signature? Can you give away a much-loved book to a friend? Does handing over your Kindle for a moment mean the same thing as lending (or borrowing) a book from a friend?

The girl invites the guy to come with her to the bookstore; is the trip such a chore that he (and she) should be relieved to avoid it? I understand plenty of people find their lives too busy and wish for more time at home, but which column does the bookstore experience fall into: stressful hassle or pleasurable leisure? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a customer say, “I could spend all day here [in the bookstore.]” I have never heard a customer say, “I can’t wait to get out of here.”

Is it time for us to take the gloves off? Should we still be willing to share the playground? A playground, I might add, that still feels like it belongs to us, market share be damned, still feels like it belongs to booksellers, because it was built and nurtured and tended by booksellers. I don’t think I’m exaggerating here; books and stories would still exist without booksellers, but not in the same way. I don’t know for certain that it would be much worse without booksellers; perhaps it may even have been better, in some way. But it certainly would have been different, and the influence of booksellers on the market gives us some sense of ownership.

No, the gloves stay on. Not because Amazon’s marketing campaign is right (it isn’t), and not because we’re taking the high road (which would not be a bad thing to do, but it’s not the reason the gloves stay on). The gloves stay on because pitting books against e-readers, as if they are adversaries, hurts everyone. Amazon might be willing to sacrifice the rest of the book industry to boost the growth of the Kindle, but it’s a short-sighted strategy.

So I’ll refrain from taking potshots at the Kindle and the Nook. Our aim isn’t to disparage Amazon or Barnes and Noble; doing so doesn’t develop loyal relationships with our customers. It’s not our job to make you hate them; it’s our job to make you love us.