A Memoir Reclaims a Forgotten Civil Rights Legacy

In "Those Few Passionate Years: Carl E. Farris, Me and the Civil Rights Movement," Kurtz details their journey from a 1964 Chicago picket line to the front lines of voter registration in the South. The book serves as both a personal history of their interracial marriage and a historical recovery project, aiming to place Farris—a dedicated organizer who worked with CORE and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference—back into the narrative of the movement.

Kurtz chronicles the couple’s life in 1960s Atlanta, capturing the daily friction of navigating a racially segregated society while working alongside figures like Martin Luther King Jr. She argues that King’s 1968 assassination signaled a profound shift, marking the effective end of the civil rights era as a unified social movement. By tracing Farris’s later transition into labor organizing before his death in 1979, the 86-year-old author provides a rare, intimate perspective on the intersection of public struggle and private sacrifice.