A Most Tolerant Little Town

The Explosive Beginning of School Desegregation

By: Rachel Louise Martin

Narrated by: Janina Edwards, Megan Tusing

A “masterful” (Taylor Branch) and “striking” (The New Yorker) portrait of a small town living through tumultuous times, this propulsive piece of forgotten civil rights history—about the first school to attempt court-ordered desegregation in the wake of Brown v. Board—will forever change how you think of the end of racial segregation in America.

In graduate school, Rachel Martin was sent to a small town in the foothills of the Appalachians, where locals wanted to build a museum to commemorate the events of September 1956, when Clinton High School became the first school in the former Confederacy to attempt court mandated desegregation.

But not everyone wanted to talk. As one founder of the Tennessee White Youth told her, “Honey, there was a lot of ugliness down at the school that year; best we just move on and forget it.”

For years, Martin wondered what it was some white residents of Clinton didn’t want remembered. So, she went back, eventually interviewing over sixty townsfolk—including nearly a dozen of the first students to desegregate Clinton High—to piece together what happened back in 1956: the death threats and beatings, picket lines and cross burnings, neighbors turned on neighbors and preachers for the first time at a loss for words. The National Guard rushed to town, along with national journalists like Edward R. Morrow and even evangelist Billy Graham. But that wasn’t the most explosive secret Martin learned...

In A Most Tolerant Little Town, Rachel Martin weaves together over a dozen perspectives in an intimate, kaleidoscopic portrait of a small town living through a turbulent turning point for America. The result is at once a “gripping” (The Atlanta Journal-Constitution) mystery and a moving piece of forgotten civil rights history, rendered “with precision, lucidity and, most of all, a heart inured to false hope” (The New York Times).

You may never before have heard of Clinton, Tennessee—but you won’t be forgetting the town anytime soon.

©2023 Rachel Louise Martin (P)2023 Simon & Schuster Audio

Critic reviews

"Janina Edwards and Megan Tusing share the narration of this audiobook about an almost forgotten uprising over desegregation.... Edwards and Tusing deftly deliver the often emotionally charged testimonies and heartrending details from both Black and white residents of Clinton. With their thoughtful performances, Edwards and Tusing capture the fear and confusion, along with the desire of the townspeople to hide what happened." (AudioFile)

"Rachel Louise Martin’s masterful narrative will stir and break your heart." —Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of America in the King Years"

"Martin is a good storyteller…and Clinton is a good story." —The New Yorker",

"Martin’s book provided the disturbing, destabilizing experience of being thrust back into a period of intense racial hatred as if it were happening in real time.... A historian who began researching the Clinton events in 2005, Martin renders them with precision, lucidity and, most of all, a heart inured to false hope." —The New York Times

Excellent

Well researched and important telling of a little known part of our history of segregated schools. Wishing more of the 12 brave students had benefited more from their heroism.

Violence that persisted

Comprehensive book about the area and integration of a small Southern uneducated town in eastern Tennessee .

Outstanding

This well researched story takes you back to a small town in Tennessee in the 1950s. It is a close up look at a war between racists and those who stood against hatred and anarchy. This story is a treasure trove of lessons learned for future generations.

A must read

This is a heart breaking, gut wrenching, eye opening read. I knew all of this, but I didn’t KNOW it. The bravery and strength of the people who paved this pathway is immeasurable as is the hatred they endured.

Pivotal Race Integration Event; Expertly Captured & Written

If I could give 10 stars for this remarkably critical and well-written book, I would! First, tremendous gratitude, respect, and admiration to and for Rachel Louise Martin for passionately and aggressively unearthing and delivering this "must know" American history. So much critical history that can move us forward as united people is being buried...intentionally. Rachel is literally a hero! Secondly, the book is extraordinarily well-written; you can feel the emotions of the players on all sides, not to mention the myriad of deep emotions that surface given the troubling circumstances that unfold. Third, the story of the Clinton 12, and their relatives and supporters is a testament to what we can achieve...what we must continue to fight achieve among ourselves as Americans. Finally, this true story is also, in my view, emblematic of a process for must-achieve humanitarian change that worked then, and I believe continues to evolve and work to this day.