“Some writers have the ability to bring the past back to life, and author Robert H. Mayer does just that with his book When the Children Marched: The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement.” Rita Lorraine Hubbard, new york journal of books
A Brief Biography of Robert H. Mayer, The Stone-Cold Facts
Robert H. Mayer is an award-winning author who wrote When the Children Marched: The Birmingham Civil Rights Movement (Enslow Publishers, Inc.) and edited The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Greenhaven Press).
Mayer grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. He has lived in Pennsylvania his entire adult life, as a social studies teacher in Lewisburg and then a professor of education at Moravian College in Bethlehem. Along the way, he earned an M.A. in history from Xavier University in Cincinnati and a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction from the Pennsylvania State University in State College.
Retiring after 41 years of teaching, Mayer now researches and writes most of the day, living in Bethlehem with his wife Jan and his cat Lucy. In truth, he does still teach a little.
AN EXCITING ANNOUNCEMENT
NOW OUT AS AN AUDIOBOOK:
In the Name of Emmett Till: How the Children of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Showed us Tomorrow from NewSouth Books/University of Georgia Press
In the Name of Emmett Till: How the Children of the Mississippi Freedom Struggle Showed us Tomorrow from NewSouth Books/University of Georgia Press
Many today still remember when fourteen-year old Emmett Till was brutally murdered. Back then the children of Mississippi felt the terror deeply and, as they got older, they rose up. From the violent Woolworth’s lunch-counter sit-ins in Jackson to the school walkouts of McComb, the young people of Mississippi picketed, boycotted, organized, spoke out, and marched, working to reveal the vulnerability of black bodies and the ugly nature of the world they lived in. These children changed that world. In the Name of Emmett Till: How the Children of the Mississippi Freedom Showed Us Tomorrow weaves together the riveting tales of those young women and men of Mississippi, figures like Brenda Travis, the Ladner sisters, and Sam Block who risked their lives to face down vicious Jim Crow segregation. Readers also discover the adults who guided the young people, elders including Medgar Evers, Robert Moses, and Fannie Lou Hamer. This story has not been told before. Readers are drawn into the powerful narrative through strong characterization, a novel-like sense of time and place, and the actual words of the children and their adversaries, helping them to better understand the rootedness of problems and questions the country struggles with today. Think George Floyd, Charlottesville, Trayvon Martin, and kneeling football players. As the United States still reckons with racism and inequality, the activists working In the Name of Emmett Till can serve as models of activism for young people today.
To Purchase Book as Hard Copy Click University of Georgia Press
A Source for the Audiobook. Click on audiobookstore.com
For Reviewer Comments Click In the Name of Emmett Till
On January 27, 2022 I had the honor of speaking with my former colleagues and other faculty at Moravian University. The talk was entitled: “In the Name of Emmett Till: Writing the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement Narrative for a Young Audience.”
A Book Signing at the Moravian Book Shop in My Little Town of Bethlehem, Saturday, November 6, 2021 from 1-3.
