The Burden of Silence

This memoir adds an element to the history of the early civil rights movement, and the downfall of Jim Crow, that we have not seen enough of. It’s the story of common everyday people, out of the public eye. They are struggling with the dangers of defying long-held custom and legalities that stigmatized a large segment of the population of the American South – black Americans. So, what about those southern white Americans mired in that social construct, who wanted desperately to defy it and see it dismantled? What kinds of fears and consequences did they face? The McDonalds survived that upheaval intact, but going into that struggle, they did not know that. hey lived with the trauma of that fear and stood their ground. They never made the evening news, they won’t be found in any history books, at least not till now. In this tender remembrance of his parents, David McDonald portrays this experience movingly. We see the everyday reality of Americans forced to allow ‘Whites’ to pass on a dry sidewalk, while standing in the mud, hat in hand. We see the reality of ‘Whites Only’ signs on most public amenities, while ‘blacks’ are forced to travel not knowing where, or if, they can find restaurants, restrooms or gas stations they’ll be allowed to use. They’re forced to accept substandard schooling for their children, and limited job opportunities. McDonald does a thorough job of documenting the reality of those. His accounts are full of racist whites behaving badly, though McDonald never loses sight of their underlying humanity. And from this simple accounting of a simple minister, we see how far-reaching his influence was, many years later, on many who admired and took to heart his teachings, even reaching all the way to the White House.