A very significant figure in the history of the South was born in Mississippi in 1924. A good many Southerners remember him with great fondness. But many more have never heard of Will Campbell. He was a Baptist preacher who never once behaved as he was expected to. Salvation South editor Chuck Reece is here with a remembrance in this week's commentary
Before dawn Oct. 26, 1960, police dogs roused a then-31-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. awake in a DeKalb County Jail cell. Sherriff’s deputies yelled for him to get up, handcuffed and manacled him by flashlight, and shoved him into the back of a police car. They ignored his pleas for an explanation.
It was 4 a.m. when they drove into the night on a desolate country road. He had no idea if he would live to see the sun rise.
Black America Since MLK: And Still I Rise, a two-part, four-hour documentary series hosted, executive produced and written by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., will premiere on GPB.
