Read an Excerpt

(From the Introduction to Part I: Civil Rights)

John Seigenthaler was a young reporter in Nashville when the civil rights movement began in that city. Partly because of that, and partly because of his experience with the movement as a member of Robert Kennedy’s Justice Department, Black struggles for equality became a recurring theme on A Word on Words.

These five interviews are grouped chronologically according to the subjects they cover. We begin with Arna Bontemps, a leading figure in the Harlem Renaissance and one of the most prolific African American scholars of the twentieth century. At the time of his interview with Seigenthaler, Bontemps was head librarian at Fisk University and had released two books that year: Free at Last: The Life of Frederick Douglass and Great Slave Narratives.

John Egerton, a renowned journalist/historian living in Nashville, won the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for his book Speak Now against the Day, telling the story of a generation of Southerners who worked for racial progress before the beginning of the civil rights movement. As Egerton explains, these were men and women, Black and white, who looked at the racial order in the South and said, “This won’t work.”

One of Seigenthaler’s most iconic guests on A Word on Words was John Lewis, who emerged from his leadership role in the civil rights struggle to become one of the most beloved members of the US Congress. He talks about his memoir, Walking with the Wind, winner of the Lillian Smith Book Award.