City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

Photographs of my father, a lost narrative from the civil rights era, by Paul Spike ; with a new afterword by the author

eng

contains biographical information

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

Photographs of my father

by Paul Spike ; with a new afterword by the author

a lost narrative from the civil rights era

After the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, Reverend Robert Spike stepped away from the media spotlight and from civil rights politics. As director of the National Council of Churches, he had organized churches to support the passage of both the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. He collaborated with major civil rights leaders on strategy, and he helped the LBJ White House craft legislation and the President's civil rights speeches, especially on the Voting Rights Act. Then in Columbus, Ohio, he was viciously murdered. The murder was never solved. Very little effort went into finding the murderer. The Columbus police and the FBI put a special spin on the story--they hinted the unsolved murder was the brutal end of a gay relationship. During his father's rise in the civil rights movement, Paul Spike lived a life eerily similar to Holden Caulfield's--a young intellectual lost in the labyrinth of booze, drugs, and girls. At Columbia University, he was on the fringes of the S.D.S. Movement. That rootless life ended with his father's murder. He began his search for the meaning of his father's life and death. In the new afterword, Spike says, 'Murder is an indelible stain on a family. It never fades. After 50 years, I understand why I tried to do this. And why I left America. I still dream of justice for my father.' Paul Spike lives in London where he writes about politics, literature, film, and travel for a wide range of newspapers and magazines