Review: BEV: A Novel by Andrea Williams and Matty Rich

Title: BEV: A Novel
Authors: Andrea Williams and Matty Rich
Publisher: Gallery Books/Karen Hunter Publishing
Publication Date: June 14, 2016
Edition: Kindle (272 pages)
Categories: Literature and Fiction, Historical Fiction, Civil Rights

BEV: A Novel by Andrea Williams

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


BEV: A Novel is based on the true life example of Beverly Luther. Comfortable with her life in New York as an activist in the civil rights movement in 1965, Bev decides to go to Selma, Alabama to participate in the march to Montgomery. She leaves behind her ordered life and experiences life in the south, as lived by African Americans, as she works to make a difference in the fight for equality and civil rights there. She is confronted by the KKK, violent opposition to change, racism and desperation, but also hope for a better future.

This book was especially poignant for me because of the election results of 2016, and the very real possibility of the impending backslide in the area of civil and human rights in our country. The authors did a magnificent job of weaving together events of the time and the speeches of various public figures and personalities such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Johnson's address to a joint session of Congress as he spoke about the Voting Rights Act he was submitting for their consideration.

I am so pleased to have had the opportunity to read and benefit from this book in enumerable ways. Advocacy for civil rights and social justice are two continuing efforts I am passionate about. I urge anyone who is interested in the subject to read this book. If everyone would do so, perhaps it may go far to defeat the grip of racism that seems to once again be dogging our politics and inhumane treatment of one another.