Book Group
(2nd Thursday of the Month)
February 13, 2025 - 1:00 pm
Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America - Joy-Ann Reid
Myrlie Louise Beasley met Medgar Evers on her first day of college. They fell in love at first sight, married just one year later. Medgar became the field secretary for the Mississippi branch of the NAACP. Myrlie worked with him as they struggled against public accommodations and school segregation, lynching, violence, and sheer despair within their state’s “black belt,” despite repeated terroristic threats. On June 12, 1963, Medgar Evers became victim of Klan-related assassination; gunned down in the family’s driveway in Jackson. Myrlie carried on their civil rights legacy, becoming a leader of the NAACP in her own right.
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In this groundbreaking and thrilling account of two heroes of the civil rights movement, Joy-Ann Reid uses their relationship to explore the work that went into winning basic rights for Black Americans, and the repercussions that still resonate today.
March 13, 2025 - 1:00 pm
The Handmaid’s Tale - In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. At once a scathing satire, an ominous warning, and a tour de force of narrative suspense, The Handmaid’s Tale is a modern classic. It is also one of the most banned books in the United States.