HAUNTED BY RACISM by Jonah Raskin, December 10, 2011

Two “isms” – racism and liberalism – make their way through Our Southern Home, a new carefully researched book that’s part history and part memoir, and that offers a convincing argument that the political, social, and cultural events that happened in Alabama in the 20th century profoundly shaped the course of the civil rights movement in the United States and also in fact altered the shape of 20th-century American history. Alabama isn’t often thought of as the frontline of change, but author Waights Taylor portrays it in that light. For much of the book, it’s racism that’s ascendant and liberalism that’s in retreat, though even when racism seemed to define all of Alabama life, especially during the trial of “the Scottsboro Boys,” as they were known, there were Alabamans who refused to abide by the hideous pathologies of racism...(Click here to read the entire review.)

—Jonah Raskin is the author of The Mythology of Imperialism, and For the Hell of It: the Life and Times of Abbie Hoffman, and a professor at Sonoma State University. Review written for Swans Commentary.

THE DARK SIDE OF ALABAMA'S MOON by Dennis Halac, December 8, 2011

Memoir. Journalism. History. The title and subtitles of this book suggest all three genres. That is precisely what is presented. Mr. Taylor is a native Alabaman born to a respectable Birmingham family more than 70 years ago. The death of his father, Waights Taylor Sr., revealed there was a connection to a famous historical event. The memoir part is a quest to understand how his father was once an FDR liberal but evolved into an arch-conservative, ardently Christian Southerner. The journalist in the author requires him to present a fair and balanced account of a trial that is usually melodramatized in extremis. The historian has led him to archives, research documents and interviews eventually revealing some new material. The book also has all the accoutrements of the academic: hundreds of footnotes, an extensive bibliography and an index...(Click here to read the entire review.)

—Dennis Halac is a historian and critic living in San Francisco. Review written for Mechanic's Institute Library.

Six 5-Star Reviews on Amazon.com

OUR AMERICAN HERITAGE, January 27, 2012

How do you create a highly readable historical perspective of institutional racism?
If you are Waights Taylor Jr. you have to have the experience, talent and need to weave an honest personal biography of iconic events and individuals as they occurred and subsequently influenced your life. This book is well researched, edited and beautifully written; Faulkner's sociological and moral discontinuity and the author's "southern voice" by cadence and phrasing reminding me of Shelby Foote and his cousin Horton.
As historical perspective, Our Southern Home is currently relevant if you wish to understand the evolution or devolution of the underpinnings of the political beliefs and attitudes from the southern Dixiecrats to the Republican south of today.
The author's stated introspective experience of emotional guilt is, "(to be) haunted by my past". For weaving such an "exquisite truth," Mr. Taylor deserves our grateful thanks and a literary absolution and exorcism for any past described omissions.
—Tony Kaufman

OUR SOUTHERN HOME - A REAL TREAT, January 24, 2012

I gave myself Our Southern Home for Christmas, and I have been thanking myself ever since. Even though this is a thoroughly documented, detailed history of the Civil Rights movement in Alabama, it reads like a novel. Once I started to read it, I couldn't put it down. If you want to immerse yourself in the history of the South in the 60s and enjoy yourself in the process, read Our Southern Home!
—Dave Doll

A GREAT CONTRIBUTION, November 28, 2011

In my opinion, Waights Taylor, Jr. has made a unique contribution to Americana: Our Southern Home is not only a family history but an engaging connection to one of the South's most infamous episodes (the Scottsboro trial), and the dawning of the struggle for Civil Rights. Impeccably written, this is a must-read for all Southerners and a should-read for everyone else.
—MrMolly

A REALLY GOOD READ, November 2, 2011

I'm not much of a history reader (I skew more toward novels), but this book caught me up in its stories. I so appreciate Mr. Taylor's straight-up, no-fooling-around writing, the honesty of his authorial voice and the way he informs textbook history with personal experience. He brought the anguish of those times alive for me as a fellow European-American. He reeled me in right from the introduction and that first (terrible!) brush with Martin Luther King. If I were to recommend one book to someone who wanted to walk into the whole subject of the pre-Civil Rights to Civil Rights era in the U.S., I'd hand them this readable, well researched, heartfelt book.
—Myra

BEAUTIFUL, November 2, 2011

Waights Taylor has brought to life historical events and players. I do not normally read history but have to admit that I have been taken with "Our Southern Home." I find myself reading much past my normal allotted time telling myself, "just one more page," until it is so far past my bedtime that I say, "oh what the heck, one more page." If history classes would have been this interesting in school I would be a historian today. I have come to know the accused, the accusers and those people and institutions who fought for one side or the other. Bravo Mr. Taylor for telling a critically important story in our nation's history in such a captivating and accessible way. You have a new fan.
—Armando

MASTERFUL, October 23, 2011

In Our Southern Home, Waights Taylor Jr. masterfully intertwines an unlikely mix of historical fact, social commentary, memoir and family biography into an amazingly coherent book that defies fitting into a specific genre.

This powerful book is filled with the nuances of segregation and deep-seated hatred from "Scottsboro to Montgomery to Birmingham." The author skillfully threads the history of three people who were 18 years old in 1931 into an enticing read.

Clarence Norris, one of the Scottsboro Nine, Rosa Parks, the woman who, with a simple act of civil disobedience, jumped the modern Civil Rights Movement forward, and Waights Taylor, the author's father were "Three young people, all eighteen years of age, each calling the South home—a young black man, a young white man, and a young black woman with three very different life stories and outcomes."

Our Southern Home is thoroughly researched and indexed. The book adds well-researched personal depth to other scholarly works that cover the tragic events of the Scottsboro Nine through Civil Rights Movement and beyond.

The author ends the volume with the words, "I am haunted by my past." Readers, too, will be haunted by this surprising blend of scholarly work and personal and family narrative.

An excellent read—well worth its purchase price and a "keeper" to boot.
—Ann Carranza