Praise for Count Them One by One:
"A wonderful new book!"
Robin Roberts, Good Morning America
“As a young lawyer Judge Gordon Martin, Jr. was one of many quiet heroes, Black and White, who worked together in the South to change the world. In this compelling book he tells the story of the people behind United States v. Theron Lynd with vivid detail, preserving a key piece of American and civil rights history.”
Marian Wright Edelman, President, Children’s Defense Fund, who litigated in Mississippi in the 1960s
“To know the reality of the Deep South 50 years ago is to understand that a miracle has occurred in this country. Gordon Martin dramatically shows us that reality in "Count Them One by One": cynical officials ruling that black college graduates were not qualified to register as voters, Americans murdered for trying to vote. The idea that a black man would be President in our lifetime was simply unimaginable then. It changed because incredibly brave black citizens of the South risked their lives to win their rights, and the national government eventually responded. Martin shows how difficult the change was, what courage and determination were required.”
Anthony Lewis, Pulitzer Prize Winner, former Supreme Court Reporter of the New York Times
“Gordon Martin’s book about the fight for voting rights in Mississippi is a wonderful marriage of a story that very much needs telling, and a man superbly qualified to tell it. Too few Americans today remember – if they ever knew – the full extent of the dehumanizing official racism to which African-Americans were subjected, and people who do not fully know their own history are not well prepared to deal with the consequences.
A respected judge in Massachusetts, Gordon Martin tells readers what it was like to be a young representative of the federal government fighting entrenched racism in a society dominated by people entirely hostile to democratic values. Those Americans who believe that the events Judge Martin describes couldn’t have happened here will benefit enormously from learning not only that they did happen, but how they happened, and how they were eventually brought to an end.”
Rep. Barney Frank (D. Mass.)
Congressman Frank personally participated in the 1964 Freedom Summer in Mississippi
“Count Them One By One does a marvelous job of documenting a truly historic expansion of democracy in Mississippi. It is alive with real flesh-and-blood characters.
As a true-life, unheralded drama, it played a critical role in the ultimate gaining of the right to vote for African-Americans in deepest Dixie. The author and narrator, Judge Gordon Martin, was a central participant who has created a priceless archive of the Hattiesburg experience. This is at once an expertly informed legal history and a gripping American morality play.”
The Reverend Jack Mendelsohn
Author of The Martyrs: Sixteen Who Gave Their Lives for Racial Justice and an advisor to Eyes on the Prize
Judge Martin's insightful work goes where no one has gone before in telling the story of the voting rights struggle in Mississippi. His documented, eyewitness account sheds new light on the final days of segregation and the last gasps of an unjust legal system. As one among a handful of black students who entered the University of Mississippi in the late 60s, I have more than a passing interest in civil-rights history and the fruits of the judge’s scholarship. This book is long overdue.
Burnis R. Morris
Carter G. Woodson Professor of Journalism and Mass Communications
Marshall University
