The Loveliest Village

Dr. David Carter, an Associate Professor of History, is taking his interest of civil rights to the books. He is currently writing a book focusing on the relationship between the White House and the civil rights groups
after the civil rights legislation acts.

 

 Many historians, according to Carter, have focused their research on the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Carter’s main focus for his book is the important events that happened after the passing of the bills. The Vietnam War and urban rioting will be included in his book as well, but Carter’s goal is trying to argue that there were some less tragic developments unfolding and how the White House reacted to local events without a setting agenda. 

This is not Carter’s first publication. He is also the author of “The Williamston Freedom Movement: Civil Rights at the Grass Roots in Eastern North Carolina, 1957-1964,� an article in the North Carolina Historical Review. The article won the Robert Diggs Wimberly Connor Award for the best article published. The inspiration for Carter’s upcoming book started like many academic books do, graduate research.

“There’s always in academia this publisher parish imperative, so I knew I had to write a book,� Carter said.

As well as the book starting out as graduate research, there was inspiration for the book .  The inspiration was how there was wonderful substance in the earlier period of history. There were some untold heroes and untold stories that Carter wants to reveal through his book. There is not a set date for the book. In Carter’s words, the book is in the “fine tuning, tinkering stage.� The research is complete for the book, as well as the writing, just a few more kinks to fix. However, it is a difficult thing to let something you work so hard on, go.

“It’s like sending your child to college,� says Carter, “there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to let it go.�

Carter is hoping that this book will attract different audiences. It is a book that would attract people who enjoy reading about the Vietnam and former President Lyndon Johnson era. He also hopes that his students will take the time and read a chapter or two and discuss it in one of his classes. Carter jokes that he hopes at least four people in his family will read it as well. 

Carter has been at Auburn University since 2000. He teaches both undergraduate and graduate classes. His classes focus on the American history and historiography as well as various aspects of the civil rights movement in America. As well as teaching and writing,  Carter has a goal for his students. His goal is to change their awareness of history. The students may not have enjoyed the readings, but he wants to give his students knowledge of history that may not have been fully told unlike the mainstream history, making the present look different to them.

Carter’s book will give people a different perspective on certain events that happened in the past. A perspective that may give audiences a new outlook on history and hopefully make them want to take a look back at untold heroes and untold stories and see what happened to them.

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