The Class of 65, Jim Auchmutey
The Class of 65, Jim Auchmutey
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The Class of '65
A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness

Author: Jim Auchmutey

Narrator: Adam Verner

Unabridged: 7 hr 39 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/14/2015

Synopsis

Being a student at Americus High School was the worst experience of Greg Wittkamper's life. Greg came from a nearby Christian commune, Koinonia, whose members devoutly and publicly supported racial equality. When he refused to insult and attack his school's first black students in 1964, Greg was mistreated as badly as they were: harassed and bullied and beaten. In the summer after his senior year, as racial strife in Americus - and the nation - reached its peak, Greg left Georgia. Forty-one years later, a dozen former classmates wrote letters to Greg, asking his forgiveness and inviting him to return for a class reunion. Their words opened a vein of painful memory and unresolved emotion, and set him on a journey that would prove healing and saddening.

About Jim Auchmutey

Jim Auchmutey spent twenty-nine years at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a reporter and editor, twice winning the Cox Newspaper chain's Writer of the Year award. His food writing has been honored by the James Beard Foundation, the Association of Food Journalists, and the Sigma Delta Chi journalism society. He is coauthor of The Ultimate Barbecue Sauce Cookbook and author of The Class of '65: A Student, a Divided Town, and the Long Road to Forgiveness. He lives in Georgia and descends from a long line of pitmasters.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Cathy on March 02, 2015

The class of '65 is an extremely good book - it's also an important one. I'd like to see it on school syllabuses, discussed in forums and made into the sort of movie that garners a hatful of Oscars. I don't read a lot of nonfiction. So often the genre seems to be divided between badly-written hyperbo......more

Goodreads review by Dan on April 29, 2015

As a member of the Class of '65 (in an Arkansas high school) and a former resident of Georgia (1989-2007), I decided to read this non-fiction book when I ran across it in a bookstore. It tells the story of a Greg Whitkamper, whose high school experience in Americus, Georgia, was abominable. In readi......more

Goodreads review by Trey on April 01, 2015

This book reads with a suspenseful intensity that makes it impossible to put down. It begins with the founding of a pacifist, Christian commune in southwest Georgia named Koinonia (Greek for fellowship). But as their views of racial equality become known, local racists dynamite their market, try to......more

Goodreads review by William on June 10, 2015

A true story that touches the heart Extremely well researched look at the civil rights era of the 1960s as it roiled a small southern town. In this book the political is very personal. It's alternately heart wrenching and heartwarming at the same time.......more

Goodreads review by Sean on August 11, 2022

I have had a lot of thoughts since finishing this book. I will now do a poor job of highlighting a few of them: I love Americus, GA. Sure...I have only been twice, but both times provided great memories. I know people who live in Americus, I have enjoyed walking around, eating, drinking, and shoppin......more

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