Terror and Truth: Civil Rights Tourism and the Mississippi Movement by Stephen A. King and Roger Davis Gatchet (review)

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Reviewed by:

• Terror and Truth: Civil Rights Tourism and the Mississippi Movement by Stephen A. King and Roger Davis Gatchet
• Torren L. Gatson

Terror and Truth: Civil Rights Tourism and the Mississippi Movement. By Stephen A. King and Roger Davis Gatchet. Race, Rhetoric, and Media. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2023. Pp. xviii, 273. Paper, $30.00, ISBN 978-1-4968-4654-9; cloth, $99.00, ISBN 978-1-4968-4653-2.)

Terror and Truth: Civil Rights Tourism and the Mississippi Movement’s seemingly ominous yet agreeably impactful topic unearths a need to center attention on the framing of memory. Authors Stephen A. King and Roger Davis Gatchet write, “This is not a book about the civil rights movement. Rather, it is about the memory of the civil rights movement” (p. xv). Mississippians will feel a sense of investment and empowerment from reading this book. It joins the list of studies framing the monumental importance of memory in shaping public identity and historical discourse on the topic of the civil rights movement and cultural heritage tourism. King and Gatchet make a convincing argument that understanding the lasting memory of the civil rights movement and, more important, crystallizing that memory are the tenets of cultural heritage tourism. Steeped in captivating evidence, this place-based study hinges on in-depth fieldwork and oral history, two hallmarks of the historical enterprise, of public history, and of community-based research.

Overflowing with descriptive analysis of the numerous methods of racial violence, this book paints a vivid depiction of how the Magnolia State struggled to embrace a cohesive narrative of the legacies of the civil rights movement. After a thorough introduction cementing the need and purpose for such a study, the first chapter traces the origins of Mississippi’s civil rights heritage tourism. This “synoptic history” is a significant intervention in scholarship as it “is the first systematic effort to narrate the history of Mississippi’s civil rights tourism industry” (p. 32).

The study describes Mississippi’s first attempts at civil rights heritage tourism, which were rooted in grassroots efforts that predated any formal commitment or involvement from the state. The authors brilliantly display local Mississippians’ commitment to principles of community, highlighting their creation of small museums like the Canton Freedom House Civil Rights Museum, public performances, and local support for such projects. All of those factors worked to ensure that the memory of the brutal legacy of the civil rights movement did not erode from the landscape.

An entire chapter is dedicated to framing the impact of the tragic murder of Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. Till’s murder sent palpable shock waves across the country and through time, and it captured the horrific necessity of the civil rights movement. The authors show how the many attempts to commemorate Till were met with consistent and staunch push-back in various forms, from vandalism to fraudulent claims that Till somehow deserved his fate. The authors persuasively demonstrate how the story of Emmett Till and the lasting efforts to preserve the legacy of his death resulted in his “appropriation as an object of tourism” (p. 91). Their analysis guarantees that both Mississippi and Mississippians digest this history as not only a traumatic actual event but also, and more important, as a salient watershed to understanding the power of space as a tool to educate in the realm of tourism. [End Page 654]

Terror and Truth forces Mississippians and Americans alike to embrace tourism surrounding the African American experience. This well-researched book encompasses the very essence of publicly engaged scholarship with copious oral interviews and a focus on the community’s response to saving their valued history. Mississippi presents perhaps the best example of a state wrestling with an inharmonious racial past that engulfs its identity today, and the book’s many vignettes show how public history continually challenges these thwarted narratives. The recentered focus on the power and importance of cultural heritage tourism of African American history that is found within this book is a refreshing discourse.

Torren L. Gatson University of North Carolina at Greensboro Copyright © 2024 The Southern Historical Association ...