One racially divided Mississippi town, two Southern girls, and the unspoken truths that connect them 30 years later
In Our Truths Be Told, award-winning journalists Lea Anne Brandon and Charlotte Ann Graham have written a dual memoir of their lives growing up through the 1960s and '70s in the infamous town of Laurel, Mississippi. Bullets fired into each of their childhood bedrooms, crosses burned in their yards, and makeshift firebombs placed in their family cars, yet it isn't until thirty years later that they dare to share the connecting link between their stories. In a reality paralleling To Kill a Mockingbird, the white lawyer who helped Charlotte's family, and others, during the violent 1967 Masonite strike was Lea Anne's father.
A single question was asked after each woman had been an established journalist, launching their shared process of reckoning: "How did we not know this about each other?"
Fearless, intimate, and hopeful, Our Truths Be Told shares the women's parallel but disparate secrets of growing up in the epicenter of '60s civil rights violence, inviting readers to examine inherited stories and begin the difficult work of truth-telling, listening, and reconciliation.
Lea Anne Brandon reported on education reform, government, and civil rights for Mississippi's Clarion Ledger. A recipient of three Best of Gannett awards and the Benjamin Fine Award for education reporting, Brandon later served as Mississippi assistant secretary of state for education and publications. She lives in Madison, Mississippi.
Charlotte Ann Graham began her career at the Jackson Advocate and spent more than twenty-five years at Mississippi's Clarion Ledger. A recipient of the Bill Minor Prize for General News Reporting, Graham also served as communications director for the John M. Perkins Foundation. She lives in Laurel, Mississippi.
