The dark story of a white supremacist's life - fully revealed in a compelling, richly detailed biography that only an insider could tell. One of the most tragic and notorious murders of the 1960s was the assassination of Medgar Evers, the revered Mississippi NAACP leader, in June of 1963. The slaying of Evers not only galvanized the civil rights movement in the South, but it later had an unspeakably profound effect on one young man. Although no one in his family would tell him the truth, this young man knew that hidden away in the shadows of deep family secrets, there was a story waiting to be told. It had something to do with Evers's death and something to do with his uncle - and it interested him from a very early age. In this way began an extraordinary search, seven years in the making, for a very personal kind of justice. Portait of a Racist: The Man Who Killed Medgar Evers? is author Reed Massengill's relentless quest to unearth the truth about his own uncle - Byron De La Beckwith - the notorious white supremacist and alleged assassin of Medgar Evers. This is an astonishing biography of a man consumed with racial hatred, who believes in his God-given mission to uphold the racial purity of the old-plantation South. Although the case of Evers's murder has not yet been formally solved, and Beckwith's two previous murder trials in 1964 - both decided by all-white, all-male juries - ended in mistrials, it is still widely believed that Beckwith is Evers's killer. In December 1990, Beckwith was again charged with the murder, after a lengthy and remarkable investigation uncovered new evidence against him. He is expected to be tried for a third time on a charge of first-degree murder. Still insisting on his own innocence, Beckwith has communicated through letters with hiw nephew for more than six years. Along with Beckwith's correspondence, Massengill has conducted numerous interviews, with people who knew Beckwith. Much of Massengill's extensive research includes personal interviews, with his aunt, who was Beckwith's first wife, Mary Louise Williams (known as Willie). In this book, "Willie," who was married to and divorced from Beckwith three separate times, comes forward to tell of her relationship with Beckwith, which was often physically abusive. Massengill has courageously uncovered revelations of which not even Beckwith himself is aware. From Beckwith's birth to a mother who could not accept the demise of the antebellum South, to his upbringing as an orphan in the Mississippi Delta, Portrait of a Racist presents a mesmerizingly detailed biography of Beckwith and probes the psychological makeup of a mind turned to racial hatred, making it both a compelling biography and a lasting work of history.

Portrait of a Racist: The Man Who Killed Medgar Evers?

Politics & Social Sciences

Massengill, Reed

Social Sciences

St Martins Pr

Massengill's work combines the very best qualities of classic male nude photography with a keen and often sublime artistic insight. Rarely have photographic studies of the male nude united these two characteristics so effectively.With an extraordinary sense of style, sensuality, and understanding of the unique grace and powerful physical beauty of the male figure, this impressive collection introduces to the world a major new artist.

Massengill

Arts & Photography

Individual Artists

Portrait of a Racist is the astonishing biography of a man consumed with racial hatred, who believes in his God-given mission to uphold the racial purity of the old plantation South. Written by Beckwith's own nephew by marriage and based on dozens of personal interviews with Beckwith and people who knew him, Portrait of a Racist presents a detailed examination of Beckwith's life and probes the chilling psychological landscape of a mind turned to murderous intolerance.

Portrait of a Racist: The Real Life of Byron De LA Beckwith

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

In the pre-Stonewall era before the advent of the gay rights movement, male nude photography was kept underground. Photographers feared police confiscation, harassment, and worse. This volume uncovers the work of ten different photographers produced during this suppressive period—images hidden away for a generation in private collections and closed archives. The majority have never been published. A full range of styles is included: gleaming muscle gods shot in the physique magazine style, sun-dappled outdoor nudes from the 1960s, and artful black-and-white studio portraits by George Platt Lynes. Uncovered restores a lost chapter to the history of the male nude photograph and reintroduces more than one hundred unsung classics of male erotic photography to the world.

Uncovered: Rare Vintage Male Nudes

Photography & Video

Universe

Physique painter as Renaissance man: The flamboyant life and forbidden art of George Quaintance George Quaintance was an artist ahead of his time, a man who forged several successful careers, yet never enjoyed mainstream fame. Had he been born a few decades later, we might know him today as a multi-tasking celebrity stylist, as a coach on Dancing with the Stars, or perhaps as the fine artist he aspired to be. But Quaintance, who died in 1957, lived and worked during an era when homosexuality was repressed, when his joyful paintings and physique photos could not depict a penis. In an era before Stonewall, the sexual revolution, gay rights and the AIDS crisis, Quaintance and his high-camp erotic art existed in a demi-monde of borderline legality. Half a century on, the masculine fantasy world created by Quaintance, populated by Latin lovers, lusty cowboys and chiseled ranch hands, retains its seductive allure. His highly prized paintings—numbering just 55—rarely come to auction, instead selling privately for undisclosed sums. As the preeminent ’male physique’ artist of the 1940s and early ’50s, his work for Physique Pictorial, Demi-Gods and Body Beautiful inspired a generation of artists like Tom of Finland, Harry Bush, Etienne, and other, lesser stars in their constellation. Raised on a farm in rural Virginia, Quaintance traveled a fascinating path of reinvention: at various points in his life he was a Vaudeville dancer, the favored portraitist of Washington’s smart set, and a celebrity hair designer—though he never actually touched hair. TASCHEN’s Quaintance traces his remarkable life story and reintroduces his colorful, kitschy and culturally resonant paintings—works that made George Quaintance the most popular and successful physique artist of his time, and one of its most intriguing figures. Text in English, French, and German

Quaintance

HANSON, DIAN

Taschen America, LLC

Reed Massengill's men are young men. Without hesitations Massengill gets close to them with his camera. His extroverted men present themselves cheeky and playful, teasing us pleassurably with their beauty.

Massengill Men

Bruno Gmunder Verlag

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