Better Than Them - by S McEachin Otts (Paperback)
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<p/><br></br><p><b> Book Synopsis </b></p></br></br>You are better than them. Don't forget it, a grandmother whispers to her grandson, S. M. Mac Otts. The year is 1965, and an eighteen-year-old boy stands curbside in his Black Belt hometown--weapon in hand--defiant before a peaceful civil rights demonstration. Violent pandemonium follows the quiet moment. For the rest of Otts's life, his grandmother's words haunt him and inspire the writing of his powerful memoir, <em>Better Than Them: The Unmaking of an Alabama Racist</em>. With honesty and humility, Otts uses that memorable day in 1965 as a lens through which to view the events that shaped his life. He ventures back to examine the antebellum period and to the glories, tragedies, and unspoken shame of his slave-holding ancestors, and forward again to the civil rights era. He probes into the roots of the race-related events involving his community in the 1950s and '60s, seeking understanding about the underlying issues and, especially, of what brings about change. Otts reflects on how he outgrew his racist upbringing and how he finally returned to his hometown to interview select black demonstrators and white peers. The conclusions he reaches make this a memoir about Otts's life and experiences in a racially divided world, but also about how a life is lived and celebrated and understood.<p/><br></br><p><b> Review Quotes </b></p></br></br><br>Mr. Otts has gifted us with a seminal book that explores the facets of his racism in post-World War II Greensboro, Alabama, and then his experience in overcoming early racist tendencies with all the related endemic stereotypical clichés. How I'd like to be on the nominating board for the MacArthur Fellowships--people like 'Mac' Otts, a deserving game-changer citizen, would always get my vote, for he will be our neo-future. -- <b>Dan Budnik</b>, winner, Honor Roll Award of the American Society of Media Photographers<br><br>The book has provided an opportunity for us to examine our own memories as well as our own journeys through the 1950s and 1960s to the present. -- <b><em>Greensboro Watchman</em></b><br><br>This book presents a true story that is long overdue. It is a meaningful contribution to improving race relations in our country. -- <b>Winston Groom</b>, author of <em>Forrest Gump</em><br><br>This book reminds us that there is one side of the civil rights movement that has been told too sparingly, namely, the conversion of many of the South's whites from racism to decency. Mac Otts tells that story of moral transformation with passion and insight, and he lifts a veil on how segregation warped whites at the same time it was brutalizing blacks. -- <b>Artur Davis</b>, former Congressman, Alabama 7th District<br>
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