Heart of Atlanta
Five Black Pastors and the Supreme Court Victory for Integration
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Narrated by:
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Kevin R. Free
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By:
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Ronnie Greene
About this listen
The Heart of Atlanta Supreme Court decision stands among the court’s most significant civil rights rulings.
In Atlanta, Georgia, two arch segregationists vowed to flout the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the sweeping slate of civil rights reforms just signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The Pickrick restaurant was run by Lester Maddox, soon to be governor of Georgia. The other, the Heart of Atlanta motel, was operated by lawyer Moreton Rolleston Jr.
After the law was signed, a group of ministry students showed up for a plate of skillet-fried chicken at Maddox’s diner. At the Heart of Atlanta, the ministers reserved rooms and walked to the front desk.
Lester Maddox greeted them with a pistol, axe handles, and a mob of White supporters. Moreton Rolleston refused to accept the Black patrons. These confrontations became the centerpiece of the nation's first two legal challenges to the Civil Rights Act.
In gripping detail built from exclusive interviews and original documents, Heart of Atlanta reveals the saga of the case’s rise to the US Supreme Court, which unanimously rejected the segregationists.
Heart of Atlanta restores the legal cases and their heroes to their proper place in history.
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The Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education is widely considered a seminal point in the battle to end segregation, but it was in fact the culmination of a decades-long legal campaign. Root and Branch is the epic story of the two fiercely dedicated lawyers who led the fight from county courthouses to the marble halls of the Supreme Court, and, in the process, laid the legal foundations of the civil rights movement.
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Superb story
- By Philo-sophia on 01-26-12
By: Rawn James Jr.
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Give Us the Ballot
- The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America
- By: Ari Berman
- Narrated by: Tom Zingarelli
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The adoption of the landmark Voting Rights Act in 1965 enfranchised millions of Americans and is widely regarded as the crowning achievement of the civil rights movement. Yet fifty years later, we are still fighting heated battles over race, representation, and political power - over the right to vote, the central pillar of our democracy. A groundbreaking narrative history of voting rights since 1965, Give Us the Ballot tells the story of what happened after the act was passed.
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In-Depth Blow by Blow Account of the VRA
- By Gillian on 10-25-16
By: Ari Berman
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The Blood of Emmett Till
- By: Timothy B. Tyson
- Narrated by: Rhett Samuel Price
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Mississippi, 1955: 14-year-old Emmett Till was murdered by a white mob after making flirtatious remarks to a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. Till's attackers were never convicted, but his lynching became one of the most notorious hate crimes in American history. It launched protests across the country, helped the NAACP gain thousands of members, and inspired famous activists like Rosa Parks to stand up and fight for equal rights for the first time.
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Tough read. Rest in Peace Emmit. We are so sorry!
- By Melanie B on 09-16-18
By: Timothy B. Tyson
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Pillar of Fire
- America in the King Years, 1963-65
- By: Taylor Branch
- Narrated by: Joe Morton, C.C.H. Pounder
- Length: 6 hrs and 45 mins
- Abridged
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In the second volume of his three-part history, a monumental trilogy that began with Parting the Waters, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Taylor Branch portrays the Civil Rights Movement at its zenith, recounting the climactic struggles as they commanded the national stage. Beginning with the Nation of Islam and conflict over racial separatism, Pillar of Fire takes the listener to Mississippi and Alabama: Birmingham, the murder of Medgar Evers, the "March on Washington," the Civil Rights Act, and more.
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the audio does not match with the book
- By Katie on 10-09-14
By: Taylor Branch
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Alabama v. King
- Martin Luther King Jr. and the Criminal Trial That Launched the Civil Rights Movement
- By: David Fisher - contributor, Dan Abrams, Fred D. Gray
- Narrated by: Fred D. Gray, Korey Jackson
- Length: 12 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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The forgotten story of a criminal trial that brought national attention to a young defendant named Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as told by Fred D. Gray, Dr. King’s lawyer and friend, along with New York Times bestselling authors Dan Abrams and David Fisher. The audiobook concludes with an exclusive conversation between Fred Gray and Dan Abrams.
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Great History Lesson and Story
- By bnieman on 09-22-23
By: David Fisher - contributor, and others
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The Lynching
- The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan
- By: Laurence Leamer
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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On a Friday night in March 1981, Henry Hays and James Knowles scoured the streets of Mobile in their car, hunting for a black man. The young men were members of Klavern 900 of the United Klans of America. They were seeking to retaliate after a largely black jury could not reach a verdict in a trial involving a black man accused of the murder of a white man. The two Klansmen found 19-year-old Michael Donald walking home alone.
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Very Readable
- By Jean on 06-10-16
By: Laurence Leamer
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At the Dark End of the Street
- Black Women, Rape, and Resistance - A New History of the Civil Rights Movement from Rosa Parks to the Rise of Black Power
- By: Danielle L. McGuire
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking and important book, Danielle McGuire writes about the rape in 1944 of a 24-year-old mother and sharecropper, Recy Taylor, who strolled toward home after an evening of singing and praying at the Rock Hill Holiness Church in Abbeville, Alabama. Seven white men, armed with knives and shotguns, ordered the young woman into their green Chevrolet, raped her, and left her for dead. The president of the local NAACP branch office sent his best investigator and organizer to Abbeville. Her name was Rosa Parks.
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Difficult topic, trigger warnings apply
- By Adam Shields on 08-03-22
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White Flight
- Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism
- By: Kevin M. Kruse
- Narrated by: Aaron Williamson
- Length: 13 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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In this reappraisal of racial politics in modern America, Kevin Kruse explains the causes and consequences of "white flight" in Atlanta and elsewhere. Seeking to understand segregationists on their own terms, White Flight moves past simple stereotypes to explore the meaning of white resistance. In the end, Kruse finds that segregationist resistance, which failed to stop the civil rights movement, nevertheless managed to preserve the world of segregation and even perfect it in subtler and stronger forms.
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Local history is important
- By Adam Shields on 10-02-19
By: Kevin M. Kruse
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Righteous Troublemakers
- Untold Stories of the Social Justice Movement in America
- By: Al Sharpton
- Narrated by: Al Sharpton
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
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Righteous Troublemakers shines a light on everyday people called to do extraordinary things—like Pauli Murray, whose early work inspired Thurgood Marshall, Claudette Colvin, who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus months before Rosa Parks did the same, and Gwen Carr, whose private pain in losing her son Eric Garner stoked her public activism against police brutality. Sharpton also gives his personal take on more widely known individuals, revealing overlooked details, historical connections, and a perspective informed by years of working in the social justice movement.
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Thank God for this book knowledge is power
- By JOAN REID on 02-23-22
By: Al Sharpton
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Unexampled Courage
- The Blinding of Sgt. Isaac Woodard and the Awakening of President Harry S. Truman and Judge J. Waties Waring
- By: Richard Gergel
- Narrated by: Richard Gergel - introduction, Tom Zingarelli
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Richard Gergel’s Unexampled Courage details the impact of the blinding of Sergeant Woodard on the racial awakening of President Truman and Judge Waring and traces their influential roles in changing the course of America’s civil rights history.
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Well-paced political-legal history woven around the intersecting stories of the 3 title characters
- By Courtney J. Corda on 03-07-19
By: Richard Gergel
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Black Detroit
- A People's History of Self-Determination
- By: Herb Boyd
- Narrated by: James Shippy
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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The author of Baldwin's Harlem looks at the evolving culture, politics, economics, and spiritual life of Detroit - a blend of memoir, love letter, history, and clear-eyed reportage that explores the city's past, present, and future and its significance to the African American legacy and the nation's fabric.
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Selective Recall
- By Rick on 07-19-17
By: Herb Boyd
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Nixonland
- The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
- By: Rick Perlstein
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 36 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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From one of America's most talented historians and winner of a LA Times Book Prize comes a brilliant new account of Richard Nixon that reveals the riveting backstory to the red state/blue state resentments that divide our nation today. Told with urgency and sharp political insight, Nixonland recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency.
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A 5-Star Book Injured by the Narrator
- By Frank on 08-12-09
By: Rick Perlstein
What listeners say about Heart of Atlanta
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-14-22
Excellent research and writing
This narrative flows well and captures parts of a civil rights struggle that don’t always get the attention they deserve.
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- Adam Shields
- 04-14-22
So many little known, but imporant histories
Summary: A journalistic account of two Atlanta legal cases in response to the 1964 Civil Rights act, joined by the Supreme Court to uphold public accommodations (Title 2 of the 1964 Civil Rights Act).
I do not think I would have picked up Heart of Atlanta if my book club had not decided to go to a book talk with the author at the Atlanta History Center. But Heart of Atlanta is the type of narrow history that I think is exactly what we often miss in our too-quick presentation of the Civil Rights Era. The Civil Rights Era was so transformational because the movement was broad-based. Literally, hundreds of thousands of people participated, at least in minor roles. But even the often significant characters of the era have been forgotten. And the more minor characters were often never really known. One of the best examples of this is that frequently throughout the book, Ronnie Greene will cite a video or picture or newspaper story about these events, and the five main characters of the story were either unnamed or listed as "unknown." In fact, the men often did not know that there was photographic or video documentation of their protests until Ronnie Greene showed it to them.
All five pastors in the subtitle were students at the Interdenominational Theological Center seminaries (ITC). Two of the five pastors are still living, Albert Sampson (involved in the earlier sit-in movement in North Carolina) and Woodrow Lewis (involved in the earlier Atlanta Student Protest movement). Unfortunately, the other three, Albert Dunn (also involved in the Freedom Rides), Charles Well, and George Willis (both having been in the military before returning to attend college and seminary), have passed away. All five continued their activism after their involvement in these cases, but like many pastors organizing in their communities, they did not obtain national recognition.
The manager and part-owner of the Heart of Atlanta Hotel, Moreton Rolleston, was a lawyer. He filed suit against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 the day it went into effect. His suit was a barrage of arguments, that Congress didn't have the right to regulate local businesses, that the 14th amendment did not prohibit individual discrimination, that the 13th amendment prohibited slavery and this regulation was a type of enslavement, that the regulation was a type of seizure and therefore a violation of his fifth amendment rights.
The five pastors attempted to eat at Lester Maddox's Pickrick Restaurant. Maddox took out a weekly ad in the local paper to promote the restaurant and rail against integration, and promote his brand of segregation. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a rotating group of the five pastoral students attempted to eat at the restaurant. They were turned away, at times with guns pointed at them, and threatened with a beating by the ax handles that Maddox sold to customers for the purpose. Civil rights lawyer Constance Baker Motley took up the case and quickly filed suit against Maddox and the restaurant. The two cases were heard by a federal court panel together and were very quickly combined into a Supreme Court Case, Heart of Atlanta Motel vs. the United States. (Baker Motley, just two years later, was the first Black woman appointed as a judge in the federal court system.)
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed on July 2, 1964. The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Oct 5 and released the decision on Dec 14. The decision was unanimous with two concurring opinions, but it is a case that most do not know about. The court upheld Congress's authority to use the Commerce Clause to regulate local businesses and dismissed the idea that the 13th or 5th amendment could be used to prevent regulation.
I appreciated the book talk and hearing the author present an overview and respond to questions. Greene is a journalist, and I think this reads like it was written by a journalist and not a lawyer or academic historian. That is not meant to be negative, but a lawyer likely would have spent more time on the legal case and less on the context of the case. And a historian likely would have written with a different tone and contextualized the story differently. This isn't quite right, but this feels like it was written as a thriller. Greene keeps building tension and then moving back to the context before moving on with the story. It felt a lot like the biography of Robert Smalls that I recently read, which was written by Cate Lineberry, also with a journalistic background.
One of the points that I think came out in the book well was that despite the very different backgrounds of Maddox and Rolleston, they both were driven not just by personal racism but by a libertarian understanding of government that believed that the government had no right to regulate private businesses. Kevin Kruse's main thesis of White Flight, also about Atlanta, was that the libertarian wing of the GOP was empowered by the rise of integration and attempted to create more private spaces to minimize the reach of government regulations toward integration. But that libertarian impulse was clearly already present in 1964, not just in 1984.
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