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The Beginning – $17.95 – 
When I’m on my speaking tour, “Patrick Smith’s Florida Is A Land Remembered,” people often ask what it was like growing up with a famous author. The fact is, I didn’t. Dad wrote his biggest hit novels after I left home. The only one I vaguely remember him writing is the subject of this article.
I was about 13 years old when he wrote The Beginning and it wasn’t a big hit at the time. People were just not ready to read about the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi at that time. However, with what is going on in our country, the time is ripe to revisit the subject.
My father’s writing career spanned from the early 1950s through 2000 and covers many subjects. Most of them capture the culture of their time. This one in particular deals with a subject that unfortunately fills today’s newspapers, television, and social media as stridently as it did in its time. It’s about discrimination and racism.
Some Background
Dad had just started his new job in public relations at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) when James Meredith enrolled to go to school there in 1962. Inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, Meredith, an African-American, decided to exercise his constitutional rights and apply to the segregated school. His goal was to put pressure on the Kennedy administration to enforce civil rights for African Americans.
It worked. He was admitted only after the intervention of the federal government, an event that was a flashpoint in the Civil Rights Movement.
Riots erupted across the South and President Kennedy mobilized the National Guard and sent federal troops to the campus. The Ole Miss riot of 1962, known as the Battle of Oxford, was fought between Southern segregationists and federal and state forces beginning the night of September 30, 1962.
Dad often had to accompany Mr. Meredith to class and he said he feared someone would jump out from a bush and take a shot at them. That never happened but he did suffer from multiple exposures to tear gas, which plagued him for the rest of his life.
For other books about the riots, check out Under Fire at Ole Miss: Tales of a Roving Mississippi Reporter in Far-Off America and An American Insurrection: James Meredith and the Battle of Oxford, Mississippi, 1962.
The Book
The Beginning was written after Dad left Ole Miss and we moved to Florida in 1966. It is the first novel he wrote in Florida; his second novel after The River is Home. It is a fast-moving, easy-reading story of a fictitious Mississippi town’s small part in the civil rights movement.
It is not a “good story” in the way one usually describes a novel. There is no happy ending. No, it is a raw, brutal story of too little and too late, of misunderstanding and refusals to try to understand, of inability to change, and of man’s inhumanity to man. It is just as timely today as when he wrote it in the early 1960s.
I’ll warn you now, as it was written in the early 1960s, it is a reflection of the attitudes and language of the times. If you are offended by the “N” word you will have a hard time with this novel. Other novels that use the “N” word include such classics as that can be found on Amazon; The Yearling (Pulitzer Prize), South Moon Under, Golden Apples, When The Whipperwill, Cross Creek (all by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings), To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, The Sound and the Fury and Light in August and other novels by William Faulkner, Roots by Alex Haley (Pulitzer Prize), Dust Tracks On The Road by Zora Neale Hurston, Paradise by Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize) and most of the works of Mark Twain, to mention a few. When you are writing an authentic period piece, the language of the time is part of the story.
Synopsis
Here is a video excerpt from the novel.
Between the first and last page, there is murder, whippings, torture in a hog pen, a church burning, rape, and a full-fledged riot. His publisher at the time called it “extremely explosive.” It is a harsh book and I do not recommend it for young readers.
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The Characters
The characters are strong ones. His portrayal of the Miller clan leaves no doubt in the reader’s mind that they are simple, ignorant souls time has passed by. To them black is black, white is white, and life is as uncomplicated as that and should not change. Smith’s descriptions of Con Ashley and Sim Hankins and what made them the people they are and why they felt the way they did about blacks are excellent. It is disturbing but important to understand where a lot of their animosity came from.
Ike Thornton, sheriff, and central character explains, “You people are constantly accusing us of still fighting the Civil War. It’s not we who are doing this, it’s you. You’re still living in the Reconstruction era. We’re trying to forget yesterday, make a new start, a new beginning …”
Patrick Smith’s Thoughts About The Book
In an interview, Dad pondered: “For those who did commit violent acts, what motivated them to do so? Was it fear or hate? What lay deep in the backgrounds that caused them to react as they did? This novel attempts to peel off the veneer and look inside.” He understood then that if we don’t take the time to figure out why a person may feel a certain way, it’s useless in turning their views around.
Asked why he wrote this novel, he said: “Somebody had to tell this story. I knew and the publishers knew that both black and white people will be critical of what I’ve tried to say. In writing this novel I realized I would bring condemnation from both sides upon myself. I am only human. No person likes to be bitterly assailed for any reason, yet this is a hazard of honest fiction writing. If this novel awakens the conscience of this nation and makes all people face reality as it really is, then I can withstand the barrage of brickbats.”
What Others Say About The Book
Reader Jane W. Ross said, “If a person really wants to know the origin of the type of hatred that is leading to these violent riots, I would suggest that he or she read The Beginning, by Patrick D. Smith. The author gives the most graphic prose portrait of the making of a riot that has ever been my pleasure to read. It is truly a fine piece of literature.” I add that it offers insight into not just a riot, but what is happening now in the world. My advice is to approach it that way.
The Beginning was re-published in 2009, and Dad wrote this in the forward: “Much has changed in the South and the nation since these turbulent times just a few decades ago, but much change is yet to come — especially in the hearts of people, both white and black. Perhaps enough time has now passed so that readers can view The Beginning as what it was intended to be: an objective look into a changing South that had as many facets as a diamond. It was not just one or the other, but a complex whole.”
Sadly, racial tension has resurfaced in a very public way in the last few years. The Beginning is as poignant today as when it was written 50 years ago and is as powerful a novel as Patrick Smith has written.
The Beginning – $17.95 –
Your Thoughts
If you’ve read the book, I’d love to hear what you thought of it. Please share that in the comment section below.
Also, I’m interested in other must-read books about this time in American history, so if you’ve read something riveting, please share your recommendations as well.