Standing on holy ground

O Magazine

"Shows how faith, love, and sheer bullheadedness may lose battle after battle against racism and still win the war."

O Magazine

...shows how faith, love, and sheer bullheadedness may lose battle after battle against racism - and still win the war.

USA Today

"A ruthlessly honest account of the new progressive South still struggling with a very old legacy of hate."

USA Today

...a ruthlessly honest account of the new progressive South still struggling with a very old legacy of hate.

Publishers Weekly

In January 1985, Ammie Murray, a white labor organizer, committed herself to helping rebuild the primarily African-American South Carolina church of her friend Barbara Simmons after it suffered terrible vandalism. Johnson, a columnist for the State, South Carolina's largest newspaper, offers a journalistic account of their 13-year friendship and struggle the church underwent many more attacks including an arson that completely destroyed that is a shocking and ultimately heartening case study of political involvement, social action and religious faith. Johnson spins a far wider web and covers the rise of the Klan in the South; an enormous, seemingly planned, epidemic of vandalism inflicted upon Southern black churches in the 1980s and 1990s; and the complicated racial politics of the Southern law enforcement and legal system. She also draws on the personal stories of Murray, whose daughter nearly died in an automobile accident, and Simmons, whose troubled son is convicted of murder and whose case goes to the Supreme Court. Johnson, who herself got involved with the rebuilding efforts, has a superb sense of storytelling that dovetails with the terrifying facts of her story: Murray's involvement with the church's ongoing troubles generated such enormous hatred in the South Carolina town of Dixiana that she was verbally and physically harassed and her beloved pet dogs brutally murdered. By the end, the book becomes a stimulating whodunit and courtroom drama. (May) Forecast: The New York Times recently challenged the idea that there was an organized epidemic of violence against black churches, and Harper's ran a piece critical of Morris Dees, one of the heroes of this book in terms of rebuilding efforts. Unfortunately, any discrepancies probably won't find much national media bandwidth for hashing out. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

This gripping page-turner offers an intricate account of the concerted vandalism of black Southern churches over the last two decades and focuses on the diverse group of volunteers who came together to rebuild the churches and their communities. The heart of this story belongs to Ammie Murray, a white grandmother who spearheaded the rebuilding and clean-up of small St. John Baptist Church in Dixiana, SC, over more than ten years. South Carolina journalist Johnson places the story of St. John in the maelstrom of black church burnings instigated by the Ku Klux Klan. She also covers the successful lawsuit brought against the KKK by two nearby churches. This touching and compelling story of the heinous effect hate crimes can have on a community delivers the uplifting message that people can overcome the hatred and renew a community. The story is compelling and well written enough to compensate for Johnson's occasional heavy-handedness with foreshadowing. This excellent first effort is highly recommended for public and academic libraries. Karen Sandlin Silverman, Ctr. for Applied Research, Philadelphia Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

South Carolina journalist Johnson portrays black and white southerners uniting when racist vandals target an African-American church. A vicious late 1984 assault on St. John Baptist Church, a small house of worship in Dixiana, South Carolina, deeply affected its loyal congregation. Ammie Murray, a white union official and coworker of a St. John's congregant, was so outraged that she formed a committee to assist in the rebuilding, quickly winning the support of many local whites as well as the black community. The next several years were marked by sporadic rebuilding efforts, recurring attacks by local teenagers and Klan-types, threatening midnight phone calls, as well as physical assaults on Murray and her colleagues. Vandals dug up the church graveyard and violated graves, leaving evidence of satanic rituals. Local police and courts, under pressure from the community, made numerous arrests. The attack on St John's proved only the first in what would become a wave of arson and destruction aimed at scores of rural black churches throughout the South, and because of their efforts, Murray and her cohorts ultimately gained national attention. Most touching was the determination of whites from states as far away as Texas and New York to help with the continued need for cleanup and vigilance. The author, herself involved in the rebuilding of St. John's, writes knowledgeably of rural South Carolina and with awe and admiration of the courage of Murray and others who came together in a biracial cause. She suggests that faith, always a powerful component of Southern life, may hold the answer to any final solution of the region's racial problems. Johnson also carefully details the actions of lawenforcement authorities and civil rights attorneys who dealt with the region-wide outbreak of violence of which the St. John's incidents proved a harbinger. A confident, well-written account that delves without blinking into the depths of human depravity and emerges with an inspiring story