My Life with Charles Billups and Martin Luther King: Trauma and the Civil Rights Movement

I am so happy that Renee finally took the time to put her thoughts, feelings, and heart about her father into print, and I say this because we grew up as next door neighbors, and her family and my family were akin to being family, and it made my heart joyful, especially for Renee when during Andrew Young's speech in 2013, he truthfully stated that if it had not been for Rev. Charles Billups, the march in Birmingham would not have been successful because when the hoses and the dogs came out--everyone scrambled--including him, but that it was Charles Billups who knelt down and said that he didn't come to run away, and everyone started slowly coming back to join him. I can also vividly remember the last time that I saw Rev. Billups, which was when he returned to Birmingham a month or so before his death, and I remember it quite vividly because he basically ran into the house smiling and calling my parents' names, and then he saw me laying on top of my parent's bed reading a book, and he hugged me, and told me to never stop reading; never give up; and never, ever believe that I could not reach any goals in life that I set for myself...and I haven't, and when I look at those degrees on my wall, and those of my sisters and so many other friends who lived in our neighborhood and were inspired by him and Rev. Gardner...I think of Rev. Billups and say to myself..Well Done. This book brought back so many memories, the good, the bad, as well as the ugly..and it also makes me think back to watching a KKK Meeting from my great-aunt's porch in Alberta City, which was just a mile of so from Tuscaloosa, a week or so after the death of Medgar Evers over in Mississippi..and this book also made me think about how along with my elementary school librarian, my cousin and another classmate, we almost became victims while on the way back from a conference in Montgomery when our car broke down. Rev. Billups faced obstacles at every step, even among some who looked like him...but he never faltered, and he always encouraged everyone to realize that we earned the right to know that we were also nothing less than every other American, regardless of color, and to me, he was a Hero---not of many words--but of numerous actions of bravery, and I know that Mrs. Inez, his mother, who lived next to us before her death when I was around six years old, would be so proud of Rev. Billups-and Renee--who, to me,should have written this book long ago. There are many untold stories of the real heroes, who stood behind Dr. King, but, and to me, the Super Hero knelt and showed courage, pride, and endurance--when others ran...but came back as they sang..."I Ain't Gone Let Nobody Turn Us Around...and this, to me, is why Dr. King, himself, admired Rev. Charles Billups, who led the real foot soldiers on the front line in Birmingham, Alabama...and I will always, like Renee, remember Andrew Young's acknowledgement thereof. This is a good book, and I thank her.

Rene Billups Baker (with Keith D. Miller) provides readers with a firsthand account of the Birmingham struggle, which was so vital to the strategies and successes of the larger Black Freedom Movement. Billups Baker’s memoir grants readers an introduction to her father, Charles Billups, an American hero whose activism warrants much further study. She imbues civil rights history with much-needed humanity, vividly compelling readers to experience the toll that civil rights activism exacted from devoted families—the ever-present fear of Klansmen’s beatings, bombs, and bullets; the pain of witnessing a parent’s arrest; the confusion and longing wrought by wrongful imprisonment. What lasting effect does such childhood trauma have upon adults? How can our nation heal from wounds we refuse to acknowledge, much less treat? Here Billups Baker raises these difficult questions and proffers thoughtful answers drawn from the crucible of her experience. These are the histories that our nation desperately needs right now. Histories that demonstrate the complexity of struggle, that recover previously overlooked participants, and that are bravely told by survivors, who have overcome trauma’s propensity to silence. “Sometimes I would be my daddy’s mouthpiece,” remembers Billups Baker. How thankful are we that she can still give voice to Charles Billups’ story and, in doing so, compel us all to rethink the movement we thought we knew. —Maegan Parker Brooks, Willamette University; author of A Voice that Could Stir an Army: Fannie Lou Hamer and the Rhetoric of the Black Freedom Struggle; co-editor of The Speeches of Fannie Lou Hamer: To Tell It Like It Is

If you want to know what it feels like to be a five-year-old girl in the height of the Civil Rights Movement, with your father at the helm, read this incredible narrative. Rene Billups Baker shares stories of late night meetings at the Gaston Hotel, of Klan violence in Birmingham, and of the lesser known Miracle March from New Pilgrim Baptist Church. Baker tells a complicated civil rights history, a history marked by trauma yet redeemed through Christian non-violence, forgiveness, and love. This book adds an important dimension to the growing literature on civil rights pioneers, reminding us of the sacrifices of those leaders and their families.

My Life with Charles Billups and Martin Luther King: Trauma and the Civil Rights Movement offers readers an inside look at the Civil Rights movement by focusing on one of the leaders of the Birmingham campaign, Charles Billups. This book does two things. First, it reminds us that central to movements are the local people who have been doing the hard work on the ground all along, before any national attention. We need to remember their work and sacrifice. Second, this book also reminds us of the trauma and the cost involved in standing up for justice. —Andre E. Johnson, University of Memphis

From the moment I picked up this memoir, I was not able to put it down. In this short page-turner of a memoir, you will learn about an unsung hero of the Civil Rights Movement; and you will walk in the shoes of that hero's little girl, who has overcome unimaginable trauma in order to tell this incredible story. I absolutely recommend this book for history scholars and history buffs; for high school and college students; and for anyone eager to read a compelling story about what life was like for the children of the Civil Rights Movement.

This is a valuable account of how the Birmingham civil rights campaign was shaped by of one of its heroes, Charles Billups. While modeling non-violence and forgiveness, Billups worked to bring about change, along with better known activists like Martin Luther King, Fred Shuttlesworth, Andrew Young, and Ralph Abernathy. This narrative, from the perspective of a loving daughter, reminds us that stories of the movement are far from complete. —Shirley Wilson Logan, University of Maryland; former chair, Conference of College Composition and Communication, author of We are Coming: The Persuasive Discourse of Nineteenth-Century Black Women

A very moving and poignant memoir. This book gives voice to those who helped make the Birmingham campaign possible and examines the psychological toll that it played on the participants. Like Jo Ann Gibson Robinson’s The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started It, this memoir adds another layer to learning about the movement. It documents events that led to the well-known campaign, providing the experiences of those that history ignored, and recounting how these participants found ways to heal themselves in their quest to redeem the soul of America.

I loved the story it was so real. Made be go back to a little girl. It is still hard for me just which my daddy could be here with me. I had to tell the story they in Birmingham, Alabama forgot about my father. He did a lot for the movement. I hated for a very long time. Sometimes I still say why they for forgot a bout the Rev. Charles Billups.