The New York Times Book Review - Howell Raines
Bending Toward Justice: The Birmingham Church Bombing That Changed the Course of Civil Rights is a valuable addition to the historical record of Alabama's role as the battleground state of the civil rights revolution…Jones's account provides an opportunity to revisit both the remarkable dark-horse campaign that made him the first Democratic senator from the South's reddest state in nearly three decades, as well as this tormenting saga of justice long delayed by Justice Department ineptitude and the personal malfeasance of the longtime F.B.I. director J. Edgar Hoover.
From the Publisher
For 40 years, justice had gone undone in the brutal murder of four young girls in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Forty years of pain and hurt for the families of those young girls and their community. Forty years of the Klan laughing at justice, getting away with the act of a coward. Doug Jones said no more. Justice had to be done. Those young girls deserved it. Their families deserved it. The community needed it. It took courage, commitment, and persistence. And—maybe most of all—heart.” —former vice president Joe Biden
“This book describes the painful sacrifice that was required, and may be called for again, for us to move toward true democracy in America. Facing the truth of our dark past with honesty and humility is the only way this nation can heal these deep wounds. But knowing the truth Jones shares in this book can set this nation free to earnestly build a more perfect union.” —Rep. John Lewis
“Doug Jones has proven himself adept at getting right with history against tall odds, whether it’s in his prosecution of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing case or his election to the U. S. Senate. Bending Toward Justice is his riveting inside account of arguably the most important cold case prosecution in civil rights history, and a crucial contribution to our understanding of where we are—and he is—today.” —Diane McWhorter, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama—The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution
“Lively...The bulk of this compelling account focuses on that extraordinary trial and 2001 conviction. A useful firsthand account of a series of civil rights landmarks, with some additional analysis of our current political climate.” —Kirkus Review
"A deeply affecting portrait of the devastation wrought by the 16th Street Church bombing and the enduring blight and bitterness it left in the black community." —Booklist Review
“This book ought to be studied by national Democrats looking to rescue populist idealism from its Trumpian captivity.” —Howell Raines, New York Times Book Review
"This poignant and powerful story tracks changes in Southern life since the 1960s, uncovering hard truths to correct America’s moral compass with an understanding of the need for activism and political discourse to achieve social justice.” —Thomas J. Davis, Library Journal Review
Library Journal - Audio
11/01/2019
Jones has served a junior U.S. senator for Alabama since 2018. Prior to that, he was U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 1997 to 2001. He presents a detailed account of the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, which killed four little girls. Jones documents events leading up to the attack, what occurred in its immediate aftermath, and the investigation into the bombing, including the attempt to protect those involved, and the events leading to the trial and conviction of some of the men involved. He also presents a highly personal account of growing up in the segregated south and living with changes that came through the civil rights moment in the turbulent 1960s and 1970s. In 2001 and 2002, Jones tried and convicted two men involved in the attack. Another bomber was convicted in 1977, and the last died in 1994. Jones also provides detailed commentary on the state of the American union as a whole and southern politics in particular, along with his successful run for the Senate in 2018. The author does an excellent job presenting his story. VERDICT This audiobook is recommended to listeners interested in politics and southern history.—Stephen L. Hupp, West Virginia Univ. Parkersburg Lib.
AUGUST 2019 - AudioFile
The U.S. senator who wrote this book narrates it, too. He is good at both, solid but not outstanding. Jones is the main character in this combined political autobiography and story of his successful prosecutions in 2001 and 2002 of two participants in the 1963 Birmingham, Alabama, church bombing, which killed four African- American girls. Jones has a pleasant Southern accent and does a fine job as himself. It’s probably fortunate that he does not have to stretch beyond that—he is much more of a reader than a performer. Political books like these, though, are meant mainly to introduce public officials in a positive way to a broader public. Through decent prose and performance, Jones does just that. G.S. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2018-11-21
A former U.S. attorney nominated by Bill Clinton chronicles his successful attempt to prosecute the last of Birmingham's 16th Street Baptist Church bombers.
Jones has led a rather remarkable career. His most recent accomplishment was a victory in a special election that made him Alabama's first Democratic Senator since 1992; he defeated Republican Roy Moore for Jeff Sessions' vacated Senate seat. Raised in the Jim Crow era of segregated Birmingham, the author was deeply influenced as a young college student by the model lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird. More importantly, in 1977, he watched Alabama Attorney General Bill Baxley work a legal miracle by securing a murder conviction against "Dynamite" Bob Chambliss, the Klansman who had eluded justice 14 years earlier for the bombing that killed four African-American girls. In this lively first-person account, written with Truman, Jones (b. 1954) walks us through his early life as a middle-class white boy who grew up mostly unaware of racial tensions in the Birmingham suburbs—until 1963, when white supremacists launched a campaign of terror against the civil rights protesters, especially the young people's demonstrations at the 16th Street Baptist Church. The author was 9 when the horrendous bombing occurred. The subsequent FBI investigation went on for years and was thwarted at every turn, shut down in 1968 without any charges against the three prime suspects: Chambliss, Tommy Blanton, and Bobby Frank Cherry. As an up-and-coming federal prosecutor and defense attorney, Jones tied himself to the Democratic Party. Building on what he had witnessed Baxley achieve, he decided it was time to strike at Blanton when he was nominated U.S. Attorney in 1997. The bulk of this compelling account focuses on that extraordinary trial and 2001 conviction.
A useful firsthand account of a series of civil rights landmarks, with some additional analysis of our current political climate.
