SHAKING THE GATES OF HELL

Evocative family history set against the brutality and transformation of the Jim Crow South.

In his debut, Pulitzer Prize–winning Birmingham Newsjournalist Archibald delivers a complex, fraught exploration of “the complicit and conspiratorial south I never came to see until I was fully grown.” Descended from multiple generations of Methodist preachers, the author focuses on his father, Rev. Robert—as represented by family memories and his archived sermons—with a mixture of pride and exasperation, recalling his wisdom and kindness and lamenting his glacial approach to acknowledging the moral wrongs of segregation. Robert’s genteel struggle with the horrific racial violence of 1960s Alabama seems emblematic of both a generational moment and transformations in public spiritual narrative. Archibald tracks how his father’s sermons at first reluctantly broached the moral evils embodied by the Birmingham church bombing, the violence of Bull Connor, and the callousness of George Wallace. “It was clear he was not the only preacher struggling to find his voice,” writes the author, “stuck between the Bible and a hot place.” Archibald demonstrates how Robert’s struggles reflected the larger landscape, how “the church was in conflict nationally....Alabama Methodists also condemned preachers who dared to participate in civil rights demonstrations, saying it wasn’t their place.” The author recalls fascinating anecdotes of ordinary people taking risky stands against the status quo. When his father finally advocated for civil rights from the pulpit, “he was finding a voice, even if it was as halting and hesitant as racial progress in the South.” Archibald grapples further with this challenging legacy, including the history of his slave-owning ancestors and his beloved grandfather’s predilection for blackface performance. Ultimately, the author ruefully concludes, “I guess evil is hardest to see when it’s all you know in your time, whatever time that might be.” He also gratefully notes that a Black preacher recalled that Robert “was on the right side of history."

A sincere, poignant synthesis of memoir and social history of a troubled time.