While The World Watched

A few weeks ago I was in LifeWay in Savannah and saw a display for a new book, While The World Watched, by Carolyn Maull McKinstry. The book caught my attention because of the story, she was a survivor of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and she was someone with whom Cyd and I had attended seminary at Beeson Divinity School. I quickly grabbed the book and paid for it.

I waited until the High School Winter Retreat to begin reading...I could hardly put it down. It is one of the most intriguing books on the Civil Rights Movement I have ever read. What makes it so unique is the way in which McKinstry along with Denise George not only tell her personal story as a survivor of not just one act of violence but as a student marcher who faced Bull Connor and his fire hoses, having a chunk of her hair ripped out by the water pressure, it also included the larger work of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham specifically but throughout the south. It doesn't just give the historical facts but gives the reader insight into the depths of human suffering and determination that came out of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Interspersed in the book are excerpts from speeches, many by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from that era as well as telling photographs from the period. It is a gripping story that tells the struggle for equality in an entirely different way. I was challenged and encouraged by the hope of the gospel to bring about true reconciliation that transcends skin color, education, or abilities. The unsung strength of the book is the way in which McKinstry shares her own struggle with bitterness and hatred that almost cost her her life through an alcohol addiction, but that ultimately she came to realize that there is forgiveness, healing, and hope found in the gospel!

But I discovered early in life--from my grandparents, my pastor, and others--that in God's eyes, no life should be lived in hatred or unforgiveness. Bitterness hurts only the people whose hearts house it, not the offenders (p261).