About this item
C. P. Ellis grew up in the poor white section of Durham, North Carolina, and as a young man joined the Ku Klux Klan. Ann Atwater, a single mother from the poor black part of town, quit her job as a household domestic to join the civil rights fight. During the 1960s, as the country struggled with the explosive issue of race, Ellis and Atwater met on opposite sides of the public school integration issue. Their encounters were charged with hatred and suspicion. In an amazing set of transformations, however, each of them came to see how the other had been exploited by the South's rigid power structure, and they forged a friendship that flourished against a backdrop of unrelenting bigotry.Now a major motion picture, The Best of Enemies offers a vivid portrait of a relationship that defied all odds. View the movie trailer here: https://youtu.be/eKM6fSTs-A0
About the Author
Osha Gray Davidson is a freelance writer and photographer. He is a contributing editor of Earthzine.org (an online journal of Earth Observation) and a regular contributor to Rolling Stone magazine. His work has appeared in National Geographic, Discover, the Washington Spectator, Mother Jones, Popular Science, Slate, and the Washington Post. He has written six books of non-fiction and co-wrote the screenplay for the award-winning IMAX documentary, Coral Reef Adventure. His book, The Best of Enemies, about the improbable friendship between a Black community organizer and the head of the Durham, NC, KKK, is currently being adapted for the screen and will star Taraji Henson.