BOOK REVIEW: While The World Watched

While The World Watched is an intriguing, moving account of growing up during the Civil Rights Movement by Carolyn Maull McKinstry. Carolyn tells her story of coming of age during this time of upheaval. It is a first hand account of life as a black person, the hatred, the bombings, and the Jim Crow laws. The bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, Carolyn’s safe place, which killed 4 of her friends, changed her life forever. This is the gripping account of the after affects of that bombing and life in Birmingham Alabama and how in 2002 several KKK members finally were brought to justice on four counts of murder.


I highly recommend this book. I can remember certain events that took place in the book as I too was growing up at this time. This is a wonderful account of how someone on the sidelines was affected by the injustices in this world. At times the dates seemed to jump back and forth making it a little hard to follow and the speech excerpts from Martin Luther King and President Kennedy were in the middle of the chapters but this did not take away from the book.

If you would like to read the first chapter of this book please click here.

Please click here to read about the author.


I received this book free from Tyndale House Publishers as part of their Blogger Review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

until next time... nel