Within the last six months, events near me
have included the reenactment of the Selma to Montgomery March, the removal of
the Confederate flag from the grounds of the Capitol of Alabama, and the
release of Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman.
In March of 1965 I brought some college
friends to my house for the weekend, unaware until we arrived that it was the
weekend of the Selma to Montgomery March. I remember well the concern that my
parents had that perhaps violence would break out, therefore the friends I had
brought with me and I were not allowed to leave the house. Although I was
within only a few miles of the event, my actual experience of it was, as it was
for many, through television and newspaper reports, or through what my father
had heard about it at his work.
I do not remember the exact time when the
Confederate flag began to fly over the dome of the Capitol in Montgomery, nor
do I remember the exact year it was moved from above the dome to the capitol
grounds, but I do remember, at least vaguely, the events. It was not possible
to convey in a recent conversation with a visitor, someone much younger than
myself who had never lived in the south, an understanding of the debates and
protests swirling around the flag.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Harper
Lee, but my college roommate was from nearby Beatrice, and took me to
Monroeville in 1965 or early 1966. During that visit she pointed out the
courthouse (where years later I attended the local production of the play, To Kill a Mockingbird) and all the locales that inspired scenes in the book.
Psychiatrist Carl Jung coined the term
synchronicity in the 1950s. I can’t say
that I really understand his “acausal connecting principle,” nor have I usually
put much store in coincidences. But in my reading, I’ve often been aware that
sometimes books seem to land in my hands or work their way to the top of the
stack to be read at an uncannily appropriate time.
How does this all tie together? I’ve been a member of the Alabama Writers’
Conclave for many years, and attended the yearly conference for the last four years.
During these gatherings I’ve met many authors, heard them speak, and/or bought
their books.
Sometimes these books have become lost, or
at least misplaced, in the many areas where books end up in my house. Knowing
that I would see Chervis Isom at this year’s conference, I was relieved when
his book, The Newspaper Boy,
resurfaced in time for me to read it before I saw him. He grew up in Birmingham
during the civil rights era, and bravely details in this memoir the development
and changes in his own attitudes over the years. I finished reading the book on
Tuesday, July 14, the same day that Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman was released. I began reading it the next day. To
read the two books back to back was a very interesting juxtaposition.
Also attending and speaking at the
conference were Sena Jeter Naslund, author of Four Spirits, a historical novel about the 1963 bombing at a church
in Birmingham that killed four young girls and T. K. Thorne, author of Last Chance for Justice: How Relentless
Investigators Uncovered New Evidence Convicting the Birmingham Church Bombers. Since
the conference was planned well in advance, it was perhaps a bit of
synchronicity that the speakers were lined up months before the events I
mentioned at the beginning of this post.
Reviews, both good and bad, of Go Set a Watchman have appeared in
almost every newspaper and flooded the internet, and I am not trying to add to
that number. Someone recently said, “You can’t hold time in a bottle.”
Certainly, there are times I would not want to hold, but I am thankful that
there are those writers who can hold it in a book. Their stories, perhaps better than anything
else, can help others understand the past and move forward in the present.
