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Ernest Withers took some of the most legendary images of the 1950s and '60s: Martin Luther King, Jr., riding a newly integrated bus in Montgomery, Alabama; Emmett Till's uncle pointing an accusatory finger across the courtroom at his nephew's killer; scores of African-American protestors carrying a forest of signs reading "i
am a man." But at the same time, Withers was working as an FBI informant. In this gripping narrative history, Preston Lauterbach examines the complicated political and economic forces that informed Withers's seeming betrayal of the people he photographed, and "does a masterful job of telling the story of civil rights in Memphis in the 1960s" (Ed Ward,
Financial Times), including the events surrounding Dr. King's tumultuous final march in Memphis.
About the author
Preston Lauterbach is the author of
Bluff City,
Beale Street Dynasty,
The Chitlin' Circuit, a
Wall Street Journal and
Boston Globe book of the year, and co-author of
Brother Johnson: Growing Up with Robert Johnson. He is a former visiting scholar at Rhodes College and a Virginia Humanities Fellow. He lives in Virginia.
