It is with humility that I lift up the names of some of the very real people mentioned in this book who dedicated their lives to the ongoing struggle to end systematic racism and racial oppression, including: Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, Andrew Goodman, and Fannie Lou Hamer. Gratitude goes to the (then) youth, led by Bob Moses and others, who journeyed to Mississippi during the summer of 1964 to work in tandem with the black citizens of that state to attempt to bring their voting rights to fruition. I would not have been able to write about that summer with any clarity had I not viewed director Stanley Nelson’s excellent documentary, Freedom Summer, or read Elizabeth Sutherland Martínez’s Letters from Mississippi: Reports from Civil Rights Volunteers & Poetry of the 1964 Freedom Summer. Also helpful was the “Timeline for the 1964 Freedom Summer Project” published by the Wisconsin Historical Society.
The Smash Collective was loosely inspired by the radical leftist group Weatherman. Instrumental in my understanding of both the genesis and the ideology of this group was Sam Green and Bill Siegel’s gripping 2003 documentary, The Weather Underground. I also read several memoirs written by former members, including: Cathy Wilkerson’s Flying Close to the Sun: My Life and Times as a Weatherman; Bill Ayers’s Fugitive Days: Memoirs of an Antiwar Activist and Public Enemy: Confessions of an American Dissident; and Mark Rudd’s Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen. Indeed, in the chapter “Called Home,” Eve references a story in which the real-life David Gilbert links the oppression of blacks in America to the bombing of villagers in Vietnam. The story of Mr. Gilbert’s revelation came from the chapter titled “A Good German” in Mr. Rudd’s excellent autobiography. Additionally, I gleaned much from Lucinda Franks and Thomas Powers’s five-part series about Diana Oughton, “Diana: The Making of a Terrorist,” first published in The Boston Globe in 1971. It was through their account of Oughton’s life that I first read of members of Weatherman killing, skinning, and eating a tomcat in order to show how ruthless they had become. The cat story might be apocryphal—Bill Ayers adamantly denies that it happened—but in any event, reading about it both troubled me and sparked my imagination.
Other books that helped me get a handle on that era include Todd Gitlin’s The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage; Abe Peck’s Uncovering the Sixties: The Life and Times of the Underground Press; Bryan Burrough’s Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence; Dan Berger’s Outlaws of America: The Weather Underground and the Politics of Solidarity; Joan Didion’s Slouching Towards Bethlehem and The White Album; Minrose Gwin’s Remembering Medgar Evers: Writing the Long Civil Rights Movement; Jamal Joseph’s Panther Baby: A Life of Rebellion and Reinvention; and Betty Medsger’s The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI. Pete Strum’s dissertation on Reconstruction is directly inspired by Eric Foner’s 1989 masterpiece, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877. Much of Daniella Strum’s work defending indigent prisoners on death row was inspired by Bryan Stevenson’s transformative memoir, Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption. On a lighter note, like Anna and Sarah, I, too, read all of Lois Duncan’s thrillers when I was growing up, and enjoyed rereading Stranger with My Face for the purpose of writing this book. Similarly, it was fun to revisit the seminal Our Bodies, Ourselves by the Boston Women’s Health Book Collective.
My son was born in the middle of my writing this book, and it took me a few years to acclimate to being both a mother and a writer. Thank you to my stalwart editor, Trish Todd, who told me that she cared more about me getting the book “right” than turning it in on time. Thanks also to my fierce advocates at William Morris Endeavor, and especially to my lovely agent, Claudia Ballard.
Thank you to Katharine Roman who shared the experience her mother, Sharon Powell, went through as a Jewish woman going through sorority rush at a southern university in the 1960s. Sharon, your harrowing story inspired Daniella’s experience with Fleur. Thanks also to my loyal writing group—Beth Gylys, Peter McDade, Jessica Handler, and Sheri Joseph—who read and critiqued much of this book in progress. Special thanks to Sheri, who read the whole novel once I completed a draft, and offered me exhaustive notes for revision. Sheri, the book is so much better because of your diligence and care! Joshilyn Jackson also read the book in early form, and her brilliant sense of story significantly improved the final version. Not only that, but Joshilyn suggested the title. My eagle-eyed husband, Sam Reid, swept in at the end of this project and read the manuscript line by line with pencil in hand, making it approximately a thousand times more graceful and cohesive than it was originally.
Thanks always to my loving parents, Ruth and Tim White, who offered their enthusiastic support for this book early on. And thank you, Mom and Dad, for being such loving grandparents. Thanks also to my wonderful in-laws, Barbara and Ron Reid, who have made me feel such a part of their family and who regularly care for my son. Your steadfast commitment to him helps me continue to be a writer. Thanks for making our little boy feel so special and loved. (Truly, Ronnie, it takes a village!)
On that note, I can think of no better “village” in which Sam and I can raise our little boy than the one offered by my loving and inclusive church. Church family: Y’all humble me and help me believe in an eternal love that is ultimately more powerful than the forces of hate and division.