Defiant: Growing Up in the Jim Crow South

Wade Hudson’s memoir recalls his childhood and young adulthood in Mansfield, Louisiana, during the Civil Rights Movement. He writes about family, neighborhood life, baseball, school, church, and the relationships that shaped him as one of eight siblings. In 1963, violent opposition to civil rights activists and other events changed his understanding of the world. He went on to college with activism in mind; the memoir begins with his arrest on false charges and closes with his release and resolve to keep fighting for Black people’s lives and dignity.