Nathan Turner Jr.

Nathan Turner Jr.

Nathan Turner Jr., is a former copy editor and writer for The Birmingham News. He is also the co-author of several books including The Road South: A Memoir, Shelley Stewart (Warner Books), The Sweetest Harmony: Evelyn Hardy and the Original Gospel Harmonettes, The History of Sixth Avenue Baptist Church, with the Rev. Dr. John T. Porter and A Drum Major for God and a Perfume Sprinkler to Man: The Life and Theology of Unsung Civil Rights Hero the Rev. Dr. Jonathan McPherson Sr.

The University of Alabama School of Communication in Tuscaloosa lists him as the first African American awarded an undergraduate journalism degree from its program.

He is also a former literacy tutor and taught journalism and remedial English classes at Talladega College and Lawson State Community College.

Currently, he occasionally reports for WBHM-NPR radio in Birmingham: http://www.wbhm.org/News/2013/hurtsboro and http://www.wbhm.org/News/2013/blackbeltnun

’We must be kind”

In 1963, black people’s hopes and aspirations collided with the heart and mindset of a segregated Birmingham. That confluence led to the civil rights demonstrations and strife that defined the city and Alabama for decades afterward.

That year I was 10.

I lived on Center Way in the (mostly) placid community of South Titusville, in southwest Birmingham.

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