BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME by Timothy Tyson is a classic portrait of an unforgettable time and place.

"Daddy and Roger and ’em shot ’em a nigger." Those words, whispered to ten-year-old Tim Tyson by a playmate, heralded a ?restorm that would forever transform the tobacco market town of Oxford, North Carolina.

On May 11, 1970, Henry Marrow, a twenty-three-year-old black veteran, walked into a crossroads store owned by Robert Teel and came out running. Teel and two of his sons chased and beat Marrow, then killed him in public as he pleaded for his life.

Like many small Southern towns, Oxford had barely been touched by the civil rights movement. But in the wake of the killing, young African Americans took to the streets. While lawyers battled in the courthouse, the Klan raged in the shadows and black Vietnam veterans torched the town’s tobacco warehouses.

The author portrays the killing and its aftermath from multiple perspectives, including that of his contemporary, 10-year-old self; his progressive Methodist pastor father, who strove to lead his parishioners to overcome their prejudices; members of the disempowered black community; one of the killers; and his older self, who comes to Oxford with a historian's eye.

Timothy Tyson is currently a professor of Afro-American studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. "Blood Done Sign My Name" was selected by dozens of college and community reading programs, including those at the University of North Carolina, Villanova University, the University of Iowa, Guilford College, the University of North Carolina-Asheville, and Greensboro College, and also "One Book, One Community" reading programs in Wilmington, Rocky Mount, Wake County, and other North Carolina communities.

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