MARKHAM STREET: AVAILABLE NOW
ABOUT RONNIE WILLIAMS
A Life in Words
Writing was not the calling Ronnie Williams expected. A lifelong educator, his passion was sharing knowledge and bringing greater equity into education. But when a family tragedy from his past resurfaced with shocking new details, he focused his academic skills on a real-life, deeply personal, criminal investigation and trial.
Years later, after a lifetime of working for equity and justice in the same community that covered up his brother's murder, Ronnie wrote the story of that courageous investigation, describing what life was like for Black families in the Deep South of the 1960’s, and telling the story of his remarkable brother, Marvin. This powerful first book shines a mirror on the political and racial landscape of today through a vivid trip into the not-so-distant past.
MARVIN'S STORY
Markham Street
Markham Street is more than a story about systemic racism, police violence, or brutal murder, although it is all of those. Above all, it is the story of one man's enduring love for his lost brother and his devotion to his grieving parents, who kept silent for two and half decades to protect their seven surviving children.
Through the lens of his then-thriving Black community of Menifee, Ronnie Williams vividly describes the suffocating misery and debasement of Black families who worked in the cotton fields or as domestic help for white families and businesses. He shares in loving detail how his parents made ends meet through constant work and resourcefulness and raised eight children, six of whom became educators like himself. He also shares his memories of the night his brother died, a night when a literal tornado tore apart his home, while only miles away, a tornado of rage and hate tore apart his family.
Most of all, he writes poignantly about his brother Marvin – a prodigy who graduated from high school at the age of 15, Marvin desperately tried to escape the grinding poverty of field labor. He joined the Navy and later the Army, where he became a respected U.S. Paratrooper. At age 20, he was a beloved son, husband, and father. He had a good job, a second child on the way, and a bright future - until the night he was unlawfully arrested on Markham Street and bludgeoned to death by police.
The book resounds with the author's unresolved grief over his brother's terrible death, his righteous determination to get justice for Marvin, and his own remarkable, ground-breaking career in the same city where his brother was killed.s finally over, the breakout title from Ronnie Williams is finally here.
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