Maxine Smith's Unwilling Pupils: Lessons Learned in Memphis's Civil Rights Classroom

Maxine Smith’s Unwilling Pupils is the authorized biography of Maxine Atkins Smith. As such it tells the story of the civil rights movement in Memphis from Smith’s viewpoint. Primarily based on newspaper accounts from the 1960s and 1970s and on Smith’s papers housed at the Memphis Public Library, the book also draws from a rich source of interviews conducted by the coauthors and others.

This book presents a well-balanced historical background of the civil rights era even while serving as a t...