The history of Alabama is riddled with stains of social injustice that serve today as an embarrassment. We look back and wonder what seemingly reasonable people were thinking when they made the decisions they did, but in his debut book “Thirteen Loops: Race, Violence and the Last Lynching in America,” B.J. Hollars explains that even with all the evil around, there were heroes in Alabama that stood up for civil rights amidst great dangers.
“It’s my great hope that readers might come to recognize that even in our state’s darkest hours, good people continued to rise up,” Hollars said. “That is our finest tradition.”
Hollars, who attended the University for his master’s in fine arts, says “Thirteen Loops” grew out of his master’s thesis and was literally assembled right here on campus. From researching at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library and writing on the fourth floor mezzanine at Gorgas, to being published by the UA Press, Hollars was able to work right in the middle of his subject – Alabama.
But he didn’t write this book to point fingers at Alabama’s past. Hollars writes about “heroes” who stood up against racial violence in a time when doing so might have cost them their lives. His book is less about racism and more about the fight for civil rights and those who participated in it.
“While my book certainly recounts racial struggles, it’s far more interested in casting light on the people and circumstances that led to tragedy, as well as the heroes dedicated to defending civil rights,” he said.
Hollars takes specific stories to exemplify the movement. He opens up the book with a look into the city of Tuscaloosa in 1933, telling the story of Vaudine Maddox’s murder and the three black men who were accused of the crime despite a dearth of evidence and shot by a masked mob before the trial. Hollars is condensing these chapters of the book for the next issue of “Alabama Heritage.”
From there, he moves to Birmingham in 1979, where a white police officer was killed by a black bank robber. When the bank robber’s trial ended in a “no bill,” infuriated Klansmen decided to kill a random and innocent 19-year-old black man named Michael Donald in what is described as “the last lynching in America.”
Through these tales of savage racism, Hollars shows us people that stood up and fought. He tells stories of people like Morris Dees, one of the founders of the Southern Poverty Law Center. Dees brought a wrongful death suit against the United Klans of America, which was headquartered in Tuscaloosa, in the case of Michael Donald. As a white southerner, Dees took a lot of heat for that decision, but it resulted in a $7 million verdict that ultimately caused bankruptcy for the Klan.
“Thirteen Loops” is not strictly a history book. It has been described as being in a “new journalistic” style, employing aspects of creative writing throughout the book as well as exhaustive research.
“I want readers to feel what it was like to walk down the Tuscaloosa streets in 1933,” Hollars said. “I wanted to do everything I could to keep people turning the pages to ensure that the full story was told. The victims deserve that.”
Hollars will visit Tuscaloosa Wednesday, Oct. 5 for a reading and discussion at 12 p.m. in the Tuscaloosa Public Library and at 5 p.m. in the W.S Hoole Special Collections Library. Books will be sold and signed.
