In 1942 a US Navy destroyer was shipwrecked off Newfoundland. Of the few who survived, one man, Lanier Phillips, was black. The rescuers, never having seen a black man before, tried to scrub his skin clean and white. This is a story about growing up with fear in segregated Georgia, enlisting in a segregated navy, facing death in the icy North Atlantic, and a rescue which galvanized a man to fight racial discrimination.
Survivor was produced by Chris Brookes of Battery Radio.
Links:
Racial Equality
Learn the issues, legislation and facts surrounding racial equality compiled by the American Civil Liberties Union.
Books:
Standing Into Danger by: By Cassie Brown 1988 The full account of the shipwreck of USS Truxton.
American Patriots: The Story of Blacks in the Military, from the Revolution to Desert Storm by: By Gail Lumet Buckley 2002 Explores how blacks have dealt with fighting for a country with a history of racial inequality.
Remembering Jim Crow: African Americans Tell about Life in the Segregated South by: By William Henry Chafe (Editor), Robert Korstad (Editor) 2008 This book and CD combination tells the oral history of black life in the South.
Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors by: By Edward E. Leslie 1998 Stories of survival and the impact of survivors on society from the 1500s to the present.
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