About the Author

Thomas M. Armstrong is a veteran of the early 1960s civil rights movement in his native Mississippi. He was at the forefront of early protests led by black Southerners for voting rights and equal public accommodations from 1958-1961, resulting in threats that had him running for his life. Mr. Armstrong moved to Chicago where he has resided since 1964. He remains closely allied with other former Freedom Riders and civil rights workers around the country and often speaks at schools and civic organizations such as the African American Leadership Roundtable in Chicago. He has been the subject of scholarly research by respected academics, sought after for major media interviews, and featured in print from critically acclaimed books to a Forbes magazine publication. The documentary Freedom Riders will be broadcast nationally on PBS in May 2011 and has been pre-screened at locations around the country from New York to Denver to Los Angeles. The movie is receiving rave reviews and Mr. Armstrong will be a featured panelist at well-publicized events where he will promote his memoir Autobiography of a Freedom Rider. Natalie R. Bell is a journalist based in New York. She has worked for more than 25 years as a news reporter for broadcast and print news organizations in the Northeast, Midwest and Southern U.S. Her work has been carried by national and international news organizations, such as Dow Jones & Co. and National Public Radio. She is specialized in covering public affairs, in particular education. As a Fulbright-Hayes fellow, she covered political and cultural transition in post-apartheid South Africa. She has also taught journalism and media studies as an adjunct professor. Bell has family roots in Prentiss, Mississippi, and met Armstrong while researching her family history. She is a native of Nashville, Tennessee, and has lived and worked as a television news reporter in Mississippi.

Reviews

Web Exclusive Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life As a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights Thomas M. Armstrong and Natalie R. Bell. HCI, $14.95 trade paper (216p) ISBN 78-0-7573-1603-6 Published on the heels of the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders, Armstrong offers a stunning, sometimes emotionally wrenching first-person account of growing up on the frontlines of the Civil Rights struggle. While studying at the trade-oriented Prentiss Institute, Armstrong, a native of Lucas, Miss., became intensely involved in the movement that made massive tectonic shifts in civil rights for African-Americans. "Those dark and difficult days...are experiences that I no longer wish to relive. For more than 40 years, I refused to share those experiences with anyone," Armstrong reflects. Indeed, some of the horrifying situations he witnessed and endured may have driven him to alcoholism in the mid-1960s, but a 1987 DUI prompted him to teetotal from then on. The most interesting aspects of Armstrong's story are those detailing the forming of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and the SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), along with his friendship with fellow Freedom Rider Joan Trumpauer Mulholland. Armstrong's narrative is also noteworthy because it pairs personal details with infamous events from that era, including his reaction to the Emmett Till murder and his disillusionment following the De La Beckwith case (the victim, Medgar Evers, was Armstrong's mentor). As told to journalist Natalie Bell, the writing is at times scattered and even sloppy but is nevertheless an important resource for Civil Rights researchers. (May)

Autobiography of a freedom rider; my life as a foot soldier for civil rights. Armstrong, Thomas M. and Natalie R. Bell. Health Communications, Inc., ©2011. 207 p. $14.95 978-0-7573-1603-6. Civil Rights Movement veteran Armstrong presents this memoir of his involvement in the Freedom Rides in the early 1960's and history of the Civil Rights Movement. Prior to the movement, the American South was a place of intense hate, segregation, and inequality. In 1961, a diverse group of young, socially conscious intellectuals boarded Greyhound buses and trains bound for the deep South. These individuals, known as Freedom Riders, sparked the beginning of the non-violent Civil Rights Movement. The price paid by these soldiers against inequality was not dissimilar to that paid by veterans of foreign wars; many were wounded, killed, or left with severe mental-health issues. This important memoir, intended for anyone with an interest in the Civil Rights Movement and race studies, provides both an individual and collective perspective on this vital period of social change in American history. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

SOURCE: VOYA VOICE OF YOUTH ADVOCATESAUDIENCE: 7,000DATE: 08/10/2011HEADLINE: Book Review: Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights Armstrong, Thomas M., and Natalie R. Bell. Autobiography of a Freedom Rider: My Life as a Foot Soldier for Civil Rights. Health Communications, 2011. 216p. $14.95 Trade pb. 978-0-7573-1603-6. In this memoir, Armstrong tells of his life as a black teen in the 1950s, when Jim Crow laws and the Ku Klux Klan were strong forces in Mississippi. He recalls a pivotal moment when he was denied service at a Dairy Queen window because of the color of his skin, which helped him decide to be a part of societal change. By 1961, Armstrong was a Freedom Rider, someone who refused to abide by the "Whites Only" signs and segregation on buses, someone who, despite being arrested and fearing for his life, refused to let the country carry on as if blacks were not worthy of the same rights as their white counterparts. This memoir is heavy on the names of Armstrong's friends and family, other activists, and politicians, which makes the beginning chapters somewhat difficult to wade through. While much of the information about segregation in the South is available in other books, Autobiography of a Freedom Fighter's strength is in the specific glimpses into and anecdotes about Armstrong's own life, like his family's home life and beliefs, his experiences helping blacks register to vote, and the post-traumatic stress he experienced because of the abuse he witnessed and faced. This book would be a nice compliment to They Called Themselves the K.K.K. by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (Houghton Mifflin, 2010/VOYA October 2010).--Deena Lipomi