Troubling Times – A Fractured Country.
We've been here before
In the summer of 1964, the FBI found the smoldering remains of the station wagon that James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman had been driving before their disappearance. Shortly after this awful discovery, Julie Kabat's beloved brother Luke arrived as a volunteer for the Mississippi Summer Project. He was one of more than seven hundred volunteers from the North who assisted Black civil rights activists and clergy to challenge white supremacy in the nation's most segregated state.
Reviews
Lenray Gandy, Age 9
Photo by Bill Rodd
"This story is an in-depth look at the life of a history maker, a change agent, a blazing star called Lucien Kabat. He was our teacher, and he was our friend. He fought bigotry with kindness, violence with humility, injustice through peace, and hate with love. It makes me believe he was an angel on loan to us from the Heavens. Rest well dear friend. Some day we will overcome!"
— Lenray Gandy, NextGeneration NMCI IT Specialist Lead at Naval Air Station, Meridian, Mississippi
"Luke’s kid sister, Julie Kabat, has written a stirring and evocative memoir of her late brother, skillfully woven together with a biography of their family… There are places in this book that are suspenseful, others that are philosophical. But throughout the 28 chapters, plus a curiosity-quenching afterword, author’s note and coda-like acknowledgments, Julie succeeds in her goals: to praise Luke’s work, as well as that of his fellow volunteers; to take another look at her relationship with Luke and their deep affection for one another; to make him live again through his letters so that readers will really know him. And as personal and heartfelt as her intentions were, Julie has also put forth an important reminder of a very divisive time in the US, with its tough lessons for the present day."
— Johnnie Rodriguez, The Rhode Island Independent and The Standard Times, April 25, 2024
COFO Office in Meridian. Luke with Lance Williams, sisters Andreesa and Dorothy Thompson, and Linda Martin.
Photo by Bill Rodd
"I showed them skin under a microscope, and they saw that color is less than skin deep and hardly that."
— Luke Kabat in 1964