Word: trillin
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Education in Georgia, Calvin Trillin describes a sequence of events which has a prominent place in civil rights lore, the desegregation of a state university. And the expected drama is not missing from his account of the integration of Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes into the University of Georgia in January, 1961. Students stone Charlayne's dormitory her first night on campus, they deface her car, and insults and abuse greet both Negroes throughout the university. But Trillin, a Yale graduate who writes for the New Yorker, does not dwell on these incidents. Instead he chooses to report the disillusionment...
...Cause had very little to do with their decision. Aided by a flat, straightforward style, Trillin makes clear that Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter were neither prodded by the NAACP nor initially moved by a deep personal commitment to civil rights activity. From the insular atmosphere of Turner High, Atlanta, they had simply not thought de-segregation possible...
...Trillin contrasts their relative innocence with the experience of James Meredith, for by some Negroes, Hamilton and Charlayne would be considered almost white. Unlike Meredith, they did not have to overcome the disadvantages of a sharecropper background; coming from a middle class community in Atlanta, they were more concerned with a normal education than with simply breaking down the system. Almost casually, both Negroes responded to the suggestion of a local leader that they become intergrationists...
...times his reception has taken a more subtle turn. Last March, digging into sit-ins at the Jackson, Miss., public library, Trillin arranged an interview with Mayor Allen Thompson. "When I arrived," Trillin recalls, "many of the local press were in the mayor's office. So were the chief of police, the chief of detectives, the city attorney, a city councilman, and the mayor's secretary to take down a transcript. Then the mayor began to interview me. How would I run the town...
Last week, while in Nashville, Tenn., to report on that city's considerable advances in race relations, Trillin got word of new trouble in Birmingham, Ala., and hurried off to cover the story. First stop: the Birmingham city jail, to ask about the captive white and Negro "Freedom Riders." As soon as Trillin left the jail, a patrol car began to tail him. Five blocks farther on, police hailed down Trillin's rented car, said he had run a stop sign. They asked questions. What was his profession? Whom did he work for? What was he doing...