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    Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew
    Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew
    Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew
    Ebook309 pages3 hours

    Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew

    By Lisa McNair

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    About this ebook

    Poignant, honest, and heartfelt letters to a sister who perished in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
     
    Lisa McNair was born in 1964, one year after her older sister, Denise, was murdered in the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. Dear Denise is a collection of forty letters from Lisa addressed to the sister she never knew, but in whose shadow of sacrifice and lost youth she was raised. These letters offer an intimate look into the life of a family touched by one of the most heinous tragedies of the Civil Rights Movement.

    Written in a genuine, accessible, familiar, and easy-to-read voice, Lisa’s letters apprise her late sister of all that has come to pass in the years since her death. Lisa considers her own challenges and accomplishments as a student in remarkably different—and very racially complex—schools; the birth of their baby sister, Kim; their father’s election to the Alabama legislature; her evolving sense of faith and place, and sometimes lack thereof, within the Black church; her college experiences; and her own sense of self as she’s matured into adulthood. She reveals some of the family’s difficulties and health challenges, and shares some of their joys and celebrations.

    The letters are accompanied by 29 black-and-white photographs, most of them from the McNair family collection, many of them taken by her father, a professional photographer who documented the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama both before and after Denise’s murder. An unswervingly candid, gentle, and nuanced book, Dear Denise is a testament to one singular life lived bravely and truthfully (if sometimes confusedly or awkwardly), during decades of bewildering social change and in the shadow of one life never fully lived.
     
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUniversity Alabama Press
    Release dateAug 10, 2022
    ISBN9780817394165
    Dear Denise: Letters to the Sister I Never Knew

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      Book preview

      Dear Denise - Lisa McNair

      LETTER 1

      The Sister I Never Knew

      Dear Denise,

      I am your sister Lisa. I have so missed having a big sister all of my life. What makes your absence from my life so odd is that we never got to meet, and yet you are part of every aspect of my life. I can’t tell you the number of times I wished you were alive and with us so that I could talk with you and know life having you as a big sister to me and Kim, our baby sister. I have so much to tell you.

      I missed getting to know you, and have always wanted to talk to you and hug you. It is odd to lose a family member before meeting them, especially losing a sister, someone I would have grown up with, a partner and a sibling in this life. I can understand never meeting a grandparent, but not an older sister. It’s so strange that I don’t know what you sounded like or what your mannerisms were.

      I was born almost exactly one year from the day of your death. Many people don’t know that about our family’s story. It’s interesting how God works. How odd that Mamma and Daddy had not been able to bear more children after you were born. And yet after you were killed, they had two more little girls. I am the oldest child now and we have a younger sister named Kimberly who was born four years after I was, but I always wanted a big sister so I would have someone to talk to and look up to.

      I think Mamma gave us all some beautiful names. I have always loved that Mamma gave you the first name Carol after her sister, whom she loved very much. I’m not sure why they didn’t call you Carol, as Denise is your middle name. But that’s the name that everyone knows you by. I wish I could have gotten to know and love you like Mamma loved her sister.

      People ask me all the time, When did you first know that your sister was killed in the bombing? I can never answer that question definitively because it’s something I have always known. I cannot recall a time when I didn’t know about you and how you died. I guess people freely talked about it around me when I was a baby, and I just picked up on it. I am sure folks would see me with Mamma and say something like, that is Maxine McNair. Her daughter was killed in the bombing and she was their only child, but now God has given them another baby. I don’t ever recall someone sitting me down and telling me directly. And yet it is my first and oldest memory. It is a strange feeling to have a sister who died before you were born, especially in such a tragic and public way, and this feeling has been and always will be a part of who I

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