Better Than Them: The Unmaking of an Alabama Racist

"You are better than them. Don't forget it," a grandmother whispers to her grandson, S. M. "Mac" Otts. The year is 1965, and an eighteen-year-old boy stands curbside in his Black Belt hometown—weapon in hand—defiant before a peaceful civil rights demonstration. Violent pandemonium follows the quiet moment. For the rest of Otts's life, his grandmother's words haunt him and inspire the writing of his powerful memoir, Better Than Them: The Unmaking of an Alabama Racist.

With honesty and humilit...