This memoir of one man's coming of age through the civil rights movement follows the author from his innocent childhood in the 1950s to his awakening as a full-time organizer in the Deep South, and the staggering costs he was bound to pay. Ernest McMillan came of age in a loving family and a nurturing community in Dallas, Texas, largely shielded from the rampaging tides of white supremacy and the color-based caste system that ruled the day. As he emerged into adulthood, however, fighting for equal rights in the "Black Belt" South and against the status quo of white power in his birthplace, he came face-to-face with forces dead set on eliminating or imprisoning him in perpetuity. Standing serves up an authentic account of a young Black boy growing up in the segregated South and debunks the myth of Dallas as a city that the civil rights movement missed. --
