FROM STAFF REPORTS

MONTEVALLO – An Alabama author and journalist and a University of Montevallo history professor will share their experiences during the Civil Rights Movement during a Feb. 28 event.

The Adelante Book Group of the Montevallo Branch of the American Association of University Women and the University of Montevallo Carmichael Library will host a Black History Month Event on Thursday, Feb. 28 at 4 p.m., in Carmichael Library.

Presenters are Alabama author and journalist Frye Gaillard and UM history professor Wilson Fallin. This combined book group and branch meeting will focus on Gaillard’s book, “Cradle of Freedom: The Alabama Movement that Changed America,” about the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama.

Frye Gaillard, a native of Mobile, is a graduate of Vanderbilt University. Gaillard began his career as a reporter for daily newspapers in the late 1960s, writing about the Civil Rights Movement as it unfolded across the South.

“As a reporter, and later editor for The Charlotte Observer, he covered the integration of that North Carolina city’s schools by busing. He has been editor of Race Relations Reporter and southern editor of the Charlotte Observer … In ‘Cradle of Freedom,’ Gaillard puts a human face on the story of the black American struggle for equality in Alabama during the 1960s. While exceptional leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, Fred Shuttlesworth, Ralph Abernathy, John Lewis, and others rose up from the ranks and carved their places in history, the burden of the movement was not carried by them alone. It was fueled by the commitment and hard work of thousands of everyday people who decided that the time had come to take a stand,” stated an AAUW release, which adapted Amazon.com reviews.

Dr. Wilson Fallin has written numerous works about African American experience, and he participated in the Civil Rights Movement, which Gaillard covered as a journalist. Fallin is a minister in the Baptist church and a highly regarded member of the history department at the University of Montevallo. He holds a doctorate from the University of Alabama and teaches courses in African-American, Southern and African studies.

His works include “Uplifting the People: Three Centuries of Black Baptists in Alabama” and “The African American Church in Birmingham, Alabama, 1815-1963: A Shelter in the Storm”.

The public is cordially invited to attend this event.