The Movement Made Us: A Generational Fight for Civil Rights

Description

A vivid memoir starring a civil rights activist involved in the Freedom Rides as told to his son, the author, which offers an unusual perspective on individual and collective memory and a recognition of the trauma and resilience that can be passed down in Black families.

Pivoting between the voices of a father and son, The Movement Made Us is a unique work of oral history and memoir, chronicling the extraordinary story of the Civil Rights Movement through a family dialogue. This dynamic string of back-and-forth stories shares the harrowing retelling and joyful musings of a core architect of the Movement, David Dennis, Sr.—a man of unparalleled importance whose voice is finally ushered onto the page—and places him into conversation with his journalist son, David Dennis, Jr.

Placing two eras of activism into conversation with one another, this is a story about America through the lens of its traumatic impact on two black men and their private relationship, now made public. Playful and searching, anxious and restorative, fearless and driven, this work features scenes of a young David Sr.’s life as he grew into a movement, tried to move beyond it, and now returns to it in order to find final solace and new personhood. These are timely reflections from a man who made it out alive, but who travels eternally with his cabal of ghosts. A crucial addition to Civil Rights history, The Movement Made Us is about why we live, why we move, and for what we are made.