The Last Days: Purity and Peril in a Small Southern Town

Marsh grew up in Mississippi during the 1960s, the only child in a family who were neither racist nor vocal civil rights advocates. Theirs is a story rarely heard because it is not one of dramatic heroism or tragedy. Yet it's the real-life story of many of us who grew up in the deep south during that era.Marsh has a gift for remembering the humorous detail. His story-telling skills are sharp and biting. We can see Laurel, Miss., close-up through a child's eyes. Yet those things we see are presented with the clarity gained from decades of maturity and reflexion.I know a couple of people who are contemporaries of the author, who grew up in his hometown and church. After I told them how much I enjoyed the book and how the book makes Laurel seem like a nice place, they seemed dumbfounded. They said that folks in Laurel were upset with how the town is presented. I can understand why they might be upset by some of the events and people Marsh recalls, but I never perceived any hostility the author has towards Laurel. Rather, the majority of people and the town itself serve as a pleasant balance to the few evil people and events which take place.Not quite told with the wit and timing of a Ferrol Sams fictionalized memoir (Run With the Horsemen, for example), The Last Days still mines an earlier South (although Sams' era is the 30s-40s) and discovers treasures in the most humble of places: the home, the school, the church, the playing field. Another book that comes to mind is Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys (October Sky) with its deep yet subtle insight into the relationship (good and bad) of father and son.

Marsh's personal, authentic and insightful memoir gives us a glimpse both into the turbulent civil rights years and a boy's personal struggle with the difficult parts of his Baptist upbringing. It took a while to get flowing, but Marsh's father's battles with the KKK and Marsh's own struggles with his church's definition of sin and its latent racism make for a "can't-put-it-down-yet" read. I especially enjoyed the chapter where Marsh's father agrees to preach to a "Jesus freak" convention in California and comes away refreshed and renewed, with a sense of what the whole Christian mission is really about. Marsh vividly illustrates what was wrong with Christianity of the past and how we can claim an authentic and radical Christianity to make the world of the future a better place for everyone to live.

In 1968, in the little town of Laurel, Mississippi, the Jaycees wished to honor an exemplary citizen and one of their own, Clifford Wilson, a man of many civic accomplishments. The ceremony was at a special banquet, and the Reverend Bob Marsh, a local Baptist preacher, was asked to present the award. Wilson got a bronze plaque, and gave an acceptance speech promising continuing service to the people of Laurel. There were photographs and smiles, and the satisfied crowd went home. An hour later, Clifford Wilson was arrested for the murder of a black man named Vernon Dahmer; others of his Klan buddies were also arrested. They had burned down Dahmer?s house and fired into the flames as he tried to defend his family. Reverend Marsh was disgusted that he had been fooled into recognizing Wilson. Charles Marsh, the Reverend?s son, tells the story of his father?s shame in _The Last Days: A Son?s Story of Sin and Segregation at the Dawn of the New South_ (Basic Books). The author moved with his family to Laurel in 1967, and was there for some of the most vile acts of racism, but was also there when the schools were integrated, so this is a valuable and unique memoir of a time when enormous changes were occurring in the south. Neither liberal nor bigot, the Reverend Marsh confronts his hypocrisy and makes a difference._The Last Days_ is a loving look at a father who was a devoted minister, and a mother who was a devoted minister?s wife, trying to make sense out of a confusing time of turmoil. The time does seem so distant now, and it is instructive to have the author give us details of the period. The Rev. Marsh stayed and did his part to help. It would make a good TV movie if he had been more of an Atticus Finch from _To Kill a Mockingbird_, and it would be dramatic if he stood on the church steps in a climax to confront the men in white hoods and robes. Marsh?s heroism was parceled out in smaller steps, such as the time in 1970 when a girl from his church brought a friend, a black girl, to the service. The deacons wanted to eject the unwelcome visitor, but Marsh would not permit it; and then they insisted on an apology to the congregation, but Marsh did not give one. He did, however, work to keep the community from being split by integration. _The Last Days_ is not just about growing up in a time of changing race relations, but also is simply about growing up. There is a fondness for family within these pages that makes the racial chill and terror stand out starkly. The author has admiration for his parents who ?in some of the nation?s most turbulent times... held on tight to the Old Story and refused incivility the final word.? Family members ought to be very proud of this son and his fine book. The Klan was not triumphant, and healing was begun; a harrowing and unforgettable story ends in redemption and hope.

Last Days, by Charles Marsh, is a memoir about the author's boyhood days in Laurel, Mississippi in the late 1960's. The author's description of his own emotional life during this period is moving-- often endearing, sometimes funny, and occassionally painful. What makes this memoir exceptional is the skill with which Dr. Marsh artfully weaves his feelings into the landscape of his own religious life and the community's distress in the midst of the Civil Rights movement. We are guided through the horrifying crimes of the KKK and the trials that followed (Imperial Wizard Sam Bowers is from Laurel and this makes the setting all the more salient), as well as the beginnings of desegregation in the schools-- more than a decade after Brown vs. the Board of Education. All this (and more) is placed in the context of the younger Marsh's relationship with his father, a charismatic and successful Baptist minister. The book gives the sense that the author is using it as a mechanism to come to terms with his father's role as a community leader during this particularly ugly period in American history. By the end, his father is clearly on the side of good, and the author closes by leaving the impression that he, a youngster in his camp bunk, had come to a peaceful resolution. My sense, however, was that if he indeed had found such peace, he would never have been compelled to write such a powerful memoir. The book is nothing short of absorbing. I found it difficult to put down. My only complaint is that at times the author refers to people and events I'd never heard of, though I was able to follow the storyline without actually going to look any of them up. I am pleased to say that I did get all of the references to The Beverly Hillbillies. Last Days is a short book with a number of complex agendas, both personal and historical. It was an ambitious task for a writer to take on, and Charles Marsh does a laudable job in meeting this challenge.