Bylines
Writings from the American South, 1963-1997
by
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"Did something happen? Did anybody see it? Who remembers?
Yes, something happened. A revolution. And, by the greatest good luck of having a job with Newsweek, I saw it as it unfolded. As a reporter, I could squeeze into packed black churches and feel a breathing air of excitement. We in the media walked beside the marches and demonstrations, and eavesdropped on confrontations. We learned to spot the smell of fear and courage, to feel the sting of tear gas, the shock of armed troops in American towns, and occasionally, we heard the sickening clunk of blows.
"We covered rampaging segregation rallies and KKK cross burnings. Also, as a white Southerner, I experienced the schisms this change brought among whites, the friendships cleaved in bitter words, generations scowling across their gap in years, family Sunday dinners ruined with chairs slammed back from the table, napkins hurled at the centerpiece."
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About the Book
“Bylines,” the book, collects the best of Cumming's freelance writing over a 34-year period. Cumming published these articles and columns in national magazines, such as Esquire, and in local newspapers. A foreword is by his son Doug Cumming, Ph.D., a journalism professor at
About the Author
Joseph B. Cumming Jr., Newsweek's Southern bureau chief during the transforming years of the 1960s and 70s, saw history from a front row seat. He wrote under his byline in other publications about these changes, and about a new consciousness he experienced as a white son of the old South. Admired -- "beloved" is the word -- by fellow writers througout the South, Cumming writes with a deep feeling for history, the heart of a poet and a love of learning.